


Hold You Close

by UmbraeCalamitas



Series: Forever In Your Arms [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, And Gabriel loves it, Angel Healing, Angel Wings, Angelic Grace, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Archangel Gabriel (Supernatural), Asmodeus is Asmodeus, Asmodeus is a bigger bag of dicks than Lucifer, Asmodeus survived the barbeque, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), Bonds, Brother Feels, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel Loves Sam Winchester, Castiel Winchester - Freeform, Castiel and Gabriel (Supernatural) are Siblings, Castiel is a Good Friend, Castiel is a Sweetheart, Castiel is a good brother, Castiel is protective of Gabriel, Dean Winchester Being an Asshole, Demon Blood Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s13e18 Bring 'em Back Alive, Families of Choice, Flashbacks, Grief, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hell, Hugs, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s13e18 Bring 'em Back Alive, Prayer, Praying Sam Winchester, Praying to Gabriel, Protective Castiel, Protective Gabriel, Psychological Torture, Sabriel - Freeform, Sam Winchester Has a Soul, Sam Winchester in Hell, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Soul healing, Temporary Character Death, Tissue Warning, Torture, Tortured Sam Winchester, Will be explained, Wing body language, Wingfic, Wings, hopelessness, wing touching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-04-24 22:37:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14365155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraeCalamitas/pseuds/UmbraeCalamitas
Summary: Written for a prompt by TheRiverScribe.Asmodeus is pissed.  He’s lost Gabriel.  Lost Lucifer and Castiel and Jack.In a last-ditch effort to regain control, he goes after his “brother’s” failed experiment:  Sam Winchester.Sam, the one who was supposed to be the Boy-King of Hell.  Who was fed Azazel’s blood at 6 months of age.  Who was groomed to become the vessel for Lucifer.  Who DID house the archangel and then spend centuries in the cage.Now, Asmodeus, last Prince of Hell, has been juicing on archangel grace.  And he’s in need of a replacement pet seeing as his last one was stolen so rudely.  May as well try keeping this one on a leash of blood-lust.Sam doesn’t do well in Hell.  The demon-grace blood reawakens Sam’s old powers…and sparks some new ones.  But can he keep himself sane long enough to gain control?  Will anyone even notice he’s gone?  Gabriel was practically catatonic and Cas more worried about Dean and Jack than anything else when Sam was taken by demons on a grocery run.And time…moves so much faster in Hell…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheRiverScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRiverScribe/gifts).



> **WARNINGS: Physical and psychological torture, graphic scenes of violence and torture, disturbing imagery, major character death. Please tread carefully and take care of yourself.**
> 
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> 
> Spoilers for 13.18 - Bring 'em Home Alive
> 
> A huge thanks to the Discord Crew for being so awesome and helping me hash this out. You guys are amazing and make writing so much fun. 
> 
> Major thank you to TheRiverScribe, ScrollingKingfisher, and TotalNovakTrash for betaing this as I wrote it. And also, River, how dare you give me this prompt. You know what I do when I have angst. I share it. 
> 
> This thing was supposed to be a nice, short little one-shot. Hahahaha! I don't know how to write short things. Or nice things, apparently. 
> 
> Please heed the warnings. The first chapter is very dark and painful. The second two will be cathartic and filled with healing (unless this runs away from me the way _Siren's Lullaby_ did and ends up twenty chapters long).

 

> _“I want to hold you close to me to kiss your face and share your dreams.  
>  I want to wrap you with my love and show you just what I'm made of.  
>  I'm holding out my hand to you.” _
> 
> _-_ __unknown_ _

 

 

 _Six hundred sixty and six._ _  
_

_Six hundred sixty and six._ _  
_

_Six hundred sixty and six._ _  
_

_Six hundred sixty and six._ _  
_

The door on the far side of the room creaked open slowly. The sound of rusted metal was an elongated moan, drawn out deliberately to cause the most emotional turmoil. It had been that way since he had been brought down here and locked in a cage that had once held an archangel. The door would creak open slowly and then Asmodeus would come in and there would be another _lesson_ on why people shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to them. 

It had been his feet first, to keep him from running. And then his fingers, to keep him from fighting. His lips, to keep him from speaking. 

Of course, Sam thought as he watched Asmodeus walk in carrying a plate of food, the difference between archangels and humans was humans had to eat to survive. So it would be Asmodeus and not a friend, not an ally, who cut the wires from Sam’s lips. And it would be Asmodeus who sewed them together again, as he had done every day since the day Sam first arrived. 

“Here we are, Sammy.”

Sam stared past the demon, his eyes focused on the door behind him, trying to ignore the way the light played on the knife in Asmodeus’ hands. The demon wasn’t careful when he cut the thread that bound his lips. Sometimes his hand slipped. Most times. 

“An’ what day are we at today? Come on now, speak up.”

Sam’s mind answered where his mouth could not. 

_Six hundred and sixty six._

* * *

The worst part of it was, Sam had thought he was gone. Asmodeus had broken into the bunker with his hoard of demons and attacked them while Dean and Ketch were in the alternate world trying to rescue Jack and their mom. His lackeys had distracted Sam and Cas while other grabbed Gabriel and then tried to disappear with them, only for the archangel to use the grace that Ketch had supplied them with (and he never thought he’d be thanking Chuck for _that_ guy) to dispatch the demons holding him and then burn Asmodeus to ash in a pillar of fire. It had been so Biblical that for a moment… for a blissful moment, Sam thought that not only was Gabriel back, but he would join them, become part of their fight for real instead of an ally who snarked on the sidelines before dying in one of the most traumatizing moments of Sam’s life. Nevermind Hell. Nevermind The Cage. For Sam, the truly devastating moments, the ones that haunted him in his dreams and the moments when he stops long enough for the thoughts to come, were the ones where people died trying to help them. Trying to save them.

Trying to save _him_.

He’d been disappointed, of course, when Gabriel had declined.

Okay, he’d been worse than disappointed. He’d been… _heartbroken_ came to mind but the word made him cringe. He could just hear Dean calling him a girl for even thinking it but it was the only word he could think of, in any language he knew, the describe the feeling of Gabe just… leaving.

He could’ve stayed at the bunker. He didn’t have to fight. He could’ve stayed with them.

He could’ve stayed with Sam.

Fingers digging into his scalp and yanking hard on his hair pulled Sam from his thoughts. The memory of Gabriel’s scoffed explanations against the backdrop of a bunker filled with bodies was replaced with the cold metal of a prison cell and Asmodeus’ grinning face.

“Time for your dinner, my boy.”

Sam’s lips tightened but he knew it wouldn’t help. His mouth wasn’t bound with thread. That had been for the benefit of Gabriel.

 _“A bit of a gift, I do believe, from his pagan buddies. App_ ar _ently they didn’t appreciate his little joke on being a_ god _. Sold ‘im to me with his mouth already sewn shut. Jus’ like those stories told ‘round the campfire about Loki the Liar.”_

_“It’s the Liesmith, you piece of shit,” Sam had snapped back. “And Gabriel was right. That’s a dumbass suit but at least it matches the person wearing it.”_

He’d known even before he said it that he shouldn’t, that he should keep his mouth shut and his head down. But Sam had _seen_ Gabriel. He had cut the threads from his mouth himself and despite Gabriel leaving, despite the way Dean had reacted and the way the rejection had hurt (not that Gabriel had been rejecting him, he hadn’t even offered himself), he had so much anger at Asmodeus that he couldn’t keep quiet. Not when he wanted to scream. Not when every inch of Sam inside and out wanted to rage at the demon, wanted to rip him to pieces, for daring to bring such a brilliant, bright force of nature as Gabriel down to the frightened, broken creature that had fled from him in the bunker.

Sam wanted to tear Asmodeus apart, but he couldn’t.

“Come on now, Sammy, don’t give me tha’ look.” Asmodeus shoved his head hard enough that Sam lost his balance and had to catch himself. He cried out as his weight was caught on fingers that had been broken so many times, he had long since lost count. Asmodeus had been experimenting, wanting to see how long it would take Sam to heal, and heal he had, but not well. Asmodeus was more than happy to break Sam’s fingers, but he had no desire to set them so they healed clean.

There was a constant ache in his hands that never faded. The digits of his fingers were crooked, curled in a sick mockery of claws, the skin decorated with scars where whatever implement Asmodeus had used had struck, or where shattered bones had protruded from Sam’s flesh.

He’d done what he could to straighten them, to put the bones back to rights, but he’d had nothing to brace them with. Asmodeus had wanted to see how Sam healed, yes, but he hadn’t truly cared for his physical state beyond that he didn’t lose his prize.

The plate that Asmodeus had been holding was set on the floor in front of him and Sam stared down at it to see what it was this time. He cringed as he saw the slices of oranges lying there in their own juice and he tried to back away on his knees even as he knew it was futile.

The heel of a boot against his spine shoved him forward and he nearly fell into the plate, barely catching his balance and unable to keep a whimper from slipping out.

“Eat, boy.”

Sam adjusted his legs so he was balanced and leaned forward, wincing even before his tongue reached out to try and pick up one of the pieces of orange.

“You gonna just lick it, boy?” The boot pressed down on his spine again and Sam let out a whine. “Growin’ princes need their nourishment so make sure you eat it all.”

Sam felt the cold plate press against his nose, the wet juice from the oranges on his skin, but those sensations were overrun by the stabbing burn like needles in his lips as the citric juice from the oranges hit the open wounds on his mouth.

Asmodeus hadn’t bound his lips with thread. As he’d said, it would take too much work to constantly cut the thread and sew it through each time he needed  to feed Sam. Instead, a pair of pliers had pulled his lip out while a thin rod had been driven through his lips, four times on the top and four on the bottom. Metal ringlets had then been fastened, like thick loop earrings, through each wound, so that every time Asmodeus wanted to quiet him, he just lined up the rings and slid thin line of wire through them.   

Sam didn’t know what the rings were made from, but whatever they were, they kept his lips from healing. The wounds on his mouth never fully sealed, no matter that the rings were never removed, and so his lips hurt constantly. But the pain of an unhealed injury was nothing compared to the agony of salt ground into open wounds. Or lemon juice, or ginger, or whatever new ingredient Asmodeus had someone prepare that would hurt as he tried to eat it.

He’d tried not eating before. Tried just refusing, but Asmodeus wouldn’t allow that. The demon was not above having Sam force-fed whatever he had chosen as a meal, and Sam much preferred to eat at least somewhat on his own terms, even if that did me on his knees, eating off the plate like a dog.

He couldn’t keep quiet as he ate the slices of oranges, the juice running like acid over the holes in his lips, and his whimpers had Asmodeus tsking behind him. “So rude, Sammy, actin’ like it’s such a _trial_ eatin’ this food I brought down special just for you.” Sam cringed as the demon circled around his, heels clicking loudly on the stone floor. “An’ you know how much I hate it when you’re rude.” He kneeled down in front of Sam, his eyes dark and cruel. Sam resolutely didn’t meet his gaze. “I said you needed to eat all of it, didn’t I?” Sam glanced down at the plate, empty of orange slices, but still covered with citrus juice. “Clean your plate, Sam.”

Sam swallowed hard and reluctantly began to lick the plate clean.

* * *

_Six hundred sixty and six._

_Six hundred sixty and six._

_Six hundred sixty and six._

_Six hundred sixty and six._

Sam stared straight ahead but his eyes weren’t focused on anything. His mind repeated the number in his head of the days he had been down here, locked away in this cell. Six hundred and sixty-six days. He would have laughed at the irony of him reaching the Devil’s number, Lucifer’s number, if not for the fact that he didn’t think there was enough positive emotion left in him for even the sensation of amusement.

_Does Dean even know you’re gone?_

After Dean had come back from Hell, and after they had learned that time in Hell ran faster than it did on Earth, Sam had calculated.

In hindsight, he wished he hadn’t.

For Sam, it had been four months that his brother was in Hell. But for Dean, it had been _forty years_ . One hundred and twenty days for Sam, against fourteen thousand six hundred days for Dean. It wasn’t even quantifiable. Sam hadn’t even been thirty when his brother was taken to Hell. He couldn’t even _imagine_ forty years.

One day. One day on Earth equaled one hundred twenty-four days in Hell. Twenty-four hours to two thousand nine hundred and four hours. One hundred seventy-four thousand, two hundred and forty minutes was the length of a day in Hell.

What it came down to was that Sam had been in Hell for six hundred and sixty-six days, but he had only been missed from the bunker for a little over five days.

Long enough for Dean to notice? Sure. If Dean had noticed right away and hadn’t been staggering around the bunker, drinking his fury at Sam away for giving Gabriel the last of the archangel grace. If that were the case… it was possible Dean had only just realized Sam was missing. Or he was thinking that his little brother was off somewhere sulking and not that he had been kidnapped while out on a damn grocery run.

In the end, what it meant was that Sam was in Hell. And the real hell was he didn’t know if anyone knew, or suspected, or even cared.

Six hundred and sixty-six days.

Sam didn’t think he had many more left in him to give.

* * *

_Six hundred sixty and seven._

_Six hundred sixty and seven._

_Six hundred sixty and seven._

The wounds on the bottom of his feet had healed and Sam could have stood up without collapsing in agony. He could have walked. He could have run.

He heard the sound of the knife blade being pulled from its sheath. It glimmered bright like Asmodeus’ smile.

Sam let himself fall away somewhere the pain couldn't reach him, his mind drifting off to a place where lush green trees touched the heavens with unrestrained branches and the wind was a whisper of hope in his ear.

* * *

_Six hundred seventy and two._

_Six hundred seventy and two._

_Six hundred seventy and two._

“Come on now, Sammy-boy, you need to drink on up. It’s tasty, in’nit?”

Sam tried to jerk his head away but gentle fingers turned his face back toward Asmodeus’ arm. He could feel his own need like a feral thing within him, screaming in desire at the scent of demon blood. Worse still was that it didn’t smell like the demon blood Sam remembered, that sick-sweet smell like rotting meat and antifreeze. He thought he could have made himself fight the need for that, too many negative memories wrapped up in the addiction that he’d fought but never completely defeated.

But Asmodeus’ blood… there was still something too familiar about it, almost repulsive in its sweetness, but something else burned in it. The taste of fresh cut grass on his tongue and something clean and crisp, like ice cold water.

By the time he realized he’d curled his fingers around Asmodeus’ arm, his lips were already coated in blood, his tongue lapping at the wound torn into the demon prince’s arm. Sam whined miserably but couldn’t make himself pull away, and Asmodeus’ other hand ran through his hair, a touch so gentle that Sam couldn’t bear to shake it off.

“That’s a good boy.”

* * *

_Six hundred seventy and seven._

His wounds were healing at an exponential rate. Asmodeus had his left hand broken three times in one day.

He could no longer move two of his fingers.

* * *

_Six hundred eighty and one._

The wounds on his feet healed minutes after he received them. Not even scar tissue was left behind. Neither were there callouses.

Sam didn’t try to run.

* * *

 _Six hundred eighty and eight_.

His head screamed with pain, every sound, every speck of light an agony. He thirsts for Asmodeus’ blood every second he exists but the scent of it makes him want to scream and vomit and die.

He drinks until Asmodeus’ lackeys have to haul him away bodily, their leader pale as death and swaying on his feet.

Sam hungers and hates himself.

* * *

_Six hundred ninety and five._

His powers are back.

The bars of his cell rattle with the force of his rage and the ground beneath his feet trembles at a glare. Every item within the reach of his gaze can become a weapon in an instant.

They stopped feeding him when he killed a demon with an apple core.

Sam watched the bastard choke on his own blood and laughed until he passed out.

* * *

_Six hundred and ninety and nine._

He doesn’t think he’s going to die.

He doesn’t think they’ll let him. Demons or angels or Asmodeus or his powers, they’ll never let him die. But they’re not going to let him live either.

* * *

_Seven hundred._

Dean isn’t coming.

* * *

He dreams of Dean.

Two Deans.

Dean the Hero and Dean the Liar.

He dreams of his brother screaming at him, calling him a traitor, calling him a murderer. He dreams of a brother who hates him for having mercy on an archangel, for giving up the only key they had to another Universe, where another piece of their broken family was dying because of Sam.

He dreams of a Dean who is frantic, who paces the bunker and runs his fingers through his hair in desperation. A Dean who calls out to him in his sleep and begs help from gods who won't listen and prays to an angel that doesn't have dark hair and deep blue eyes.

Sam hates the dreams of the second Dean, whose desperate cries of his name he longs to answer but can't, because that Dean isn't real. That Dean is a lie.

He clings to the dreams where his brother screams and there's a cold acknowledgement in  green eyes that no, he isn't coming for Sam. He never even looked.

Sam dreams of a brother he loves and hates, of choices he understands and scoffs, and he wakes exhausted and aching in places that powers and demon blood and angel grace _can't_ heal - places inside too broken to fix.

Sam dreams of his brother.

Until he dreams of someone else.

* * *

The place in his head where the trees stretch as high as the sky has become his home in the moments when sleep is far away. The bars of the cage around him are a dull, boring grey and his mind is more at ease here, among the trees and the sunlight, with birds chirping in the distance.

If he let himself think of it too hard, he would notice the lack of a breeze against his skin or the way the sun shines but is never warm. He can hear the birds but he cannot see them, just as he cannot feel the grass beneath his fingers. Of course he is aware of these things, he is not a fool, but they are unpleasant and so it much nicer to ignore them and merely enjoy the peace that he is granted.

He stares up at a sky that is endlessly blue in a world that is endlessly day and hums songs that have no meaning. He is sitting there, admiring the play of light through leaves dancing on a nonexistent breeze when they world… shifts.

Dark rooms and metal cabinets and cold walls.

He has fallen asleep again.

Sam looks around for Dean, expecting his older brother to start shouting at him at any moment, screaming cruel words that hurt because they are true. When Dead doesn’t show up, Sam wonders if this is one of the _other_ dreams. One of the dreams where Dean calls out for him or is looking for him. One of the lies he tries to sell himself but isn’t foolish enough to buy.

He wanders the bunker aimlessly, keeping an eye out for his brother’s illusory form, sighing over the cold familiarity of this place. His dream is very realistic, his memory better than he expected, but he doesn’t let it break his stride as he walks down the hall toward the dream-version of his room.

He pushes open the door and is reminded that his bedroom held an archangel, however briefly. The walls his mind has dreamed up are still covered in Enochian, the symbols dark against the sandy colored walls, and Sam didn’t think you could read in dreams. Except his dreams have never been normal, so perhaps he is the exception to the rule.

His eyes follow the words, reading the story that Castiel read to him, his eyes seeing the words as he has never been able to. He scoffs as his dream mind waxes on and on about _pornstars_ and ignores the feeling in his stomach like jealousy or grief for things that can never be.

There is the sound of footsteps and part of Sam is relieved that he will face whichever Dean this dream has called up so he can awaken and go back to the trees and the sunlight, but when he turns, it is a pair of golden eyes that stare back at him. Sam’s stomach drops to his toes even as his heart lurches up into his throat and his feet lock into place, forbidding him from stepping away even as his mind screams for him to retreat because this… this is uncalled for.

“Sam,” Gabriel breathes, his eyes wide and burning. Not blue-white like Sam is used to but the bright gold of summer sunshine and something within Sam burns with it. The archangel steps closer and raises a hand but Sam flinches and pulls away.

He wouldn’t be able to ignore Gabriel. Wouldn’t be able to stand seeing the archangel’s hand touching him but being unable to feel it. He hears the footsteps stop, hears the sharp inhalation of breath, the way this illusion of his mind exhales a breath that sounds like his name mixed with a prayer and his heart aches to reach out. Sam has long since stopped hoping for anything to come to him that he was permitted to keep, knows that everything that steps before him, gifted, comes with a price he is never able to pay. He would give almost anything - his last breath, his _first_ \- to be able to reach out and touch the archangel, but he knows it is a lie.

Things he loves and that wanting tone is always a lie. He has never deserved anything more.

“Sam, where are you?” Gabriel whispers, something frantic in his voice, and Sam looks up to see those burning eyes looking as desperate as they do warm. They remind him of his sun-bathed meadow and he thinks he could stare at them all day, but the world around him ripples and Gabriel’s form wavers with a shout.

Sam wakes up on the floor of Asmodeus’ cage for the first time in weeks. There is crusted blood around his mouth but his stomach churns with revulsion and hunger. He can feel his ribs pressing against his skin, grinding together, and he wonders why it’s taking him so long to starve to death. Is it the blood?

He can feel his heartbeat hammering in his chest and his breaths come quick even as they catch little air for his lungs. He feels only half-present and wonders if he is dying, after all.

He thinks of praying for the first time in over two years. Thinks of begging for an archangel to carry his soul home.

He doesn’t know if he even starts the prayer before his eyes fall closed and he is back in the bunker and Dean is screaming.

* * *

“Where are you?” Gabriel asks, as though he can’t pick the answer right out of Sam’s head. As though he’s not a construct of a mind desperate for some escape from the hell he has been trapped in for too long. A figurative and literal hell.

“Sam. Tell me where you are.”

But Sam only stares at Gabriel, watching the way his whiskey brown eyes seem to almost shine. He does not question why he is seeing Gabriel in his dreams. His subconscious has done a good job of hitting him in the face with his wrongs, and he has wronged the archangel. He all but demanded Gabriel join them. All but commanded the archangel become one of them and face off against the world-ending monster of the week.

Seven hundred and nineteen days in a hell with Asmodeus as his landlord has given Sam a new perspective on freedom. He would have thought he’d have learned after The Cage, but apparently he needed to be reminded of how it felt to have choice taken from him.

He’d tried to take away Gabriel’s. Sam may as well have been attempted to put a collar around the archangel’s neck.

He sees the way Gabriel’s eyes widen, the way his mouth opens just slightly in surprise. It hurts that Sam’s own mind seems to think he wouldn’t have picked up on it that fast, but he supposed be could be an idiot at times.

“Sam,” his mind’s version of Gabriel chokes out, reaching for him.

Sam pulls away, unable to bear the thought of touching Gabriel and feeling nothing. Of being reminded that he’s not really there.

“Tell me where you are, Sam!”

The world ripples away. Sam falls into it and lets it carry him where it will.

* * *

“Sam, please.”

 _“He’s not real, you know.”_ The voice sounds like Asmodeus’. Sam flees from it with a cry that rips the dream apart.

* * *

“Sam.”

_“No matter how much you wish he was, he’ll never be real.”_

* * *

_“You’re here forever, Sam. You’re_ mine _forever.”_

* * *

He opens his eyes to find he’s back in his meadow, lying in the tall grass with the trees stretching high around him. There are clouds in the sky today, he notes with a distant awe, and he stares at them until tears blur his vision and he’s forced to blink them away.

He isn’t sure what it is that captures his attention, alerts him to another presence. He watches the sky for what might be eons stretched across an endless mind’s worth of time before a shadow falls or a murmur sounds or something makes him tilt his head just enough that the archangel comes into view.

Bright golden eyes are studying the scene around them. There’s a small smile on the archangel’s face and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looks… happy. Healthy. Sam’s heart lurches knowing this is nothing but an illusion. This is what Sam would want, given the choice. He can admit that to himself, here in this peaceful place where his mind is the only thing present. Gabriel happy and healthy and here with him is all that Sam could ever ask for.

Gabriel utters a soft sigh and his eyes turn toward Sam. They still glitter bright gold, but there is a line between them now, a look of confusion, as though Sam is a puzzle he can’t quite work out.

The archangel’s lips quirk up in a smile and he goes back to studying the world around them. There are birds singing from the trees and the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze. Somewhere above him, he hears the archangel begin to hum softly, the sound blending with the ambient noise of the world around them. It is a peaceful way to exist here in this place that was real but wasn’t, and Sam closes his eyes and just enjoys the time he has without pain.

He feels fingers carding through his hair, the long strands shifted here and there, and Sam keeps his eyes closed. He knows it is an illusion, like the rest of this world around him, but with his eyes closed he can almost imagine that Gabriel is really here. He can almost believe the archangel is humming soft notes as he plays with Sam’s hair.

He wishes he could have this all the time. He wishes this could be his life.

Something soft and warm presses against his temple and then Gabriel’s voice whispers in his ear, “Tell me how to find you, Sam-a-Lamb.”

He feels the tears slide down from the corners of his eyes, the most real thing in this place, and his voice breaks when he answers. “He won’t let me go.”

“Who?”

Sam opens his eyes to meet Gabriel’s gaze, sees pain and love in those whiskey gold eyes and wishes wishes wishes it was real.

“Asmodeus.”

* * *

He doesn’t know how long it’s been. He’s lost count of the days.

His throat is so dry he can’t swallow and his pangs of hunger have long since faded into a silent feeling of emptiness. He thinks it must not be a good sign that even his thirst for demon blood has abandoned him, but he’s having too much trouble focusing to really determine why.

That seems like a bad sign, too.

* * *

The world around him is dying. The trees that reached toward the sky with laden branches are now barren. Dry mounds of dead leaves litter the ground as cracked, black branches shatter across a grey sky. The grass is brown and wilted beneath him and the birds are silent. The birds are gone.

“Sam.”

Gabriel is still here. The only thing in this world that still looks alive. He is healthy and whole and as fierce as the angels Sam used to believe in, when he was a child and still thought he was worth saving.   
“Stay, Sam.” Gabriel’s voice is soft but there’s a jagged edge to it, something sharp and broken that flickers in his eyes. “Stay with me.”

He could barely move. The world was like a heavy weight spread across his body, keeping him from pulling himself to his feet, from leaving the rotting decay of this world behind.  

He can only stare at the archangel, visible from where he lay. He was tall, unbroken, standing strong like he had that day he faced off against Lucifer, blade in hand. But there is more to him now. More to him here. His eyes burn bright like the sun that Sam hadn’t seen in...

In...

How many days? 

_Enough_ , he thinks, and resists the urge to give into the laughter that lurks behind his teeth, hysterical and deadly. 

_”You’re here forever, Sam.”_ Asmodeus hissed in his ears, a memory of words spoken too many times to forget. 

He’d lost count of the days long ago, but maybe it didn’t matter. 

Maybe forever had already come and gone.

* * *

Sleep and wakefulness blur together and he doesn’t know whether he is in the cage or the meadow. Both are grey and lifeless and perhaps it doesn’t matter where he is. His vision has faded to a smear of vague color, his sensations little more than cold and the thrum of his heartbeat against his ribs, too fast. Only his hearing seems unaffected, allowing him to hear every whisper spoken by this illusion of Gabriel that haunts him constantly. He is the only clear thing in Sam’s failing vision, his skin glowing with power, his eyes burning like twin stars. He is the most beautiful thing Sam has ever imagined and he thinks, if Gabriel is the last thing he sees, he will go happily into whatever waits for him after this.

“Sam.” Gabriel’s eyes should be too bright to look at, full of starlight and grace, but Sam meets them without pain. They burn like whiskey poured over shards of glass, glittering with a power Sam can feel within him, like rampant butterflies in his soul.

He tries to focus on the fluttering of soft wings and not the way his chest aches like something is pressing down on it, pinning him to the floor.

Gabriel’s presence is like the sunlight he misses more than a full breath and Sam almost cries when the archangel leans down next to him and he can feel warmth against his skin for the first time in what must be forever. The archangel’s breath is warm and smells of fresh cut grass and Sam feels the tears slip from his eyes as his name is whispered like supplication.

“Sam, pray for me.”

But why? Why does he need to pray for Gabriel? He’s already here.

 _Take me home,_ Sam thinks, but he isn’t sure where home is. He wishes Gabriel would lean down again so Sam could feel his warmth. He’s just so cold.

“Pray for me, Sam, so I can find you.”

“Blessed Saint Gabriel, Archangel,” Same murmured through numb lips, “we beseech you to intercede for us at the throne of divine mercy: As you announced the mystery of the Incarnation to Mary, so through your prayers may we receive strength of faith and courage of spirit, and thus find favor with God and redemption through Christ Our Lord. May we sing the praise of God our Savior with the angels and saints in heaven forever--”

He feels the strength leave him with a suddenness that is startling, his lips fumbling the words of the prayer. He blinks his eyes to clear them and struggles as he tries to open them again, gravity weighing down hard on them.

He can feel his heartbeat thudding hard and deep in his chest and wonders if that’s what is making his body tremble. He tries to lick his lips but his tongue is dry and only sticks to the cracked and bloody skin of his mouth, tries to finish the prayer but the words won’t come. He is tired.

He hears the thunder of feathers, thousands of them, beat hard against the air, and he forces his eyes open. The world slides around him in a sick smear of grey shadows, but Sam cannot miss the flash of light that might have once been blinding but is now like watching the sun rise over a dark canyon, filling all of its crevices with holy light. He sees little more than outlines and the bright shine of what is unmistakably Gabriel’s glowing golden eyes, and his wings.

His heart shudders in his chest and he blames it on the tears that roll down his cheeks at the sight. There are six of them, three pairs, each of them the same burnt honey gold as the archangel’s eyes. They raise up behind him, stretching across a room they’re much too large for and somehow moving beyond it, outside it, and within it all at once. The feathers shine like they’re crystallized and yet he doesn’t think he has ever seen anything so soft in all his life.

The strength in his neck fails him, his head dropping unexpectedly. Surprise makes him cry out but he has no strength even for that. His breath eases out of his lungs with a barely-there sound, little more than a sigh. He feels his lungs close up behind them like gates sliding shut.

 _Oh,_ he thinks suddenly, and is reminded of a blade in his spine and his body failing around him, sagging hard and useless in his brother’s arms. He remembers, from a distance, the way his head had lolled then, his body lacking any strength to hold it up. _Oh._

He can still feel his heart in his chest, each beat so hard it makes his spine ache, but it’s so slow compared to the racing speed of only minutes prior.

 _Tachycardia,_ his mind supplies for him, even in a moment as useless as this, when the information will do nothing to help him.

Instead, his eyes follow the graceful fold of wings as three sets bend and curl over Gabriel’s back like a cloak of down. The top pair is so long, the primary feathers drag on the ground, and Sam feels his lips curl up in a smile. He thinks, amused even as his vision darkens, that there is a short joke in there somewhere. He thinks he’d like to see the way Gabriel’s wings move when he’s affronted, how the feathers would splay like fingers and his shoulders shift to accommodate their weight. He’d like to see the way they move during every emotion, at every moment. He thinks--

Sam’s heart gives a painful throb, cutting off his thoughts, and he feels it as a sound leaves his throat. It’s as indecipherable as the sudden flap of those wings, feathers ruffled and rubbed wrong, before there is an archangel leaning over him.

He feels the hands that cup his cheeks, the way Gabriel’s thumb traces over his skin, warm like sunshine.

“Sam,” Gabriel whispers, desperate and pained.

It’s the last thing Sam hears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four days after he runs from the bunker, Gabriel hears Dean Winchester's prayer. Sam is missing. He has been missing since Gabriel left. Gabriel sees Sam everywhere, but _finding_ him is difficult, and saving him... saving him may be more than Gabriel's remaining grace can handle. But Gabriel is not alone in this and Castiel will not let his brother continue to suffer in silence. Not while he can help.
> 
> The events of chapter one from Gabriel's perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: Torture, angst, panic attacks, flashbacks, major character death (temporary), and Dean being an asshole.**
> 
> This was supposed to be MADE OF FLUFF, but Gabriel demanded to tell the story from his perspective. So here you go - eighteen pages of Gabriel, Castiel, Sam, and Dean. We'll get to the healing and fluff next chapter.

**CHAPTER TWO**

****Time and space melted away beneath the force of Gabriel’s wings. It was so different from his panicked flight away from the bunker when Sam had dropped that _offer_ on him like it wasn’t a death sentence, being asked to join the Winchesters in their desperate attempt to save the world from whatever creature they had themselves unleashed. They’d dropped so much on him all at once, everything that had happened, and he had scarcely processed the fact that he wasn’t still in Asmodeus’ prison - in fact, kept expecting to come back to himself, to wake up from whatever delusion he had fallen into, and find out that everything since Ketch storming toward his cell with an angel blade in hand was an illusion his mind had conjured up. He was nothing if not imaginative and it wouldn’t be the first time he had created an entire world within his head. He simply didn’t normally _limit it_ to his head.

He’d had barely enough grace to stumble away on stiff wings, away from a place that smelled like the burning remains of his prison. He’d spent four days - had it only been four days? - recovering. The grace that had been returned to him (and oh, he had not expected that, had not expected to be given _anything_ resembling help) had jump-started his recovery. He’d anticipated using the meager dregs of his grace, mere whispers, fumes of what he had once held within him, to try and replenish all that he had lost. Instead, that vial of grace had given him enough that he was able to make it to one of his safe houses, miraculously still intact, and spend an evening just… being somewhere by choice.

The following days had involved enough debauchery to make some of his Pagan buddies blush to their toes, but it had helped. Not that he could ever expect any of his brothers to understand how his Pagan habits could help to heal his grace, but that didn’t matter. He was able to fly without his wings giving out on him, even if he could only get the one pair to work. That was enough to offer him an escape, if he should need one, and that was important. He needed to be able to move, to run, to fly, because he still felt like there was someone on his heels, like there was someone following behind him, just waiting for him to let his guard down. Someone with a syringe in hand who would take--

_“Gabriel… I know you’re fucking out there, so just listen up, all right? Sam’s… missing. He’s been missing since the day after you left and I swear to Chuck, if you did something to him, I’ll deep fry your fucking ass. He stuck up for you, even after you left and I…”_ There was a long pause, like a moment of white noise where Gabriel was sure Dean was listening to someone else - probably Castiel - speak. _“Fine. Look, just... Sam doesn’t leave like this, he doesn’t, and if something’s got him or if there’s more of those fuckers who attacked us… just get your ass over here, all right, and help me find him.”_

He honestly thought about ignoring him. He thought about shutting down the prayer line the moment he’d heard his name spoken in Dean Winchester’s voice, but something kept him from doing so. Even now, his mind sorted through the possible reasons for Dean Winchester to be praying to _him_. The boy who had an angel at his beck and call, and Castiel was no slouch, no matter that he was only a seraph. Of course, when Daddy just kept resurrecting you every time you died, Gabriel supposed there wasn’t much you had to worry about.

His lips pulled back in a soundless snarl, because the prayer wasn’t closed off and he _knew_ the words Dean was going to say. Knew the idiot Winchester would admit that Gabriel owed them. He found his solitary set of wings rising behind him, the feathers splaying outward in a show of superiority, and he didn’t force them down as he leapt across the universe, from his safe house and into the bunker he had only just left, rage carrying him as far as it did fast.

He landed in the bunker, right in front of Dean Winchester, and he wished that the idiot human could see him for what he was. This vessel was smaller than Dean, but Gabriel himself was massive as only archangels were, and his wings were raised up high over his head, splayed out across the expanse of the room, flaring with what remained of his dilapidated grace, and Dean had the gall to mutter “‘bout time.”

Castiel was not so flippant.

The seraph’s wings were also out, loosely parted so the primary feathers were dragging the ground. They quivered lightly and Gabriel’s lips lifted in a sneer. **“Don’t even try it, Castiel,”** he growled in Enochian. **“You couldn’t stop me if I wanted to and if you tried…”** He looked at the younger angel and flared his grace, raising his wings with aching muscles, the feathers splaying outward. Castiel’s body moved into a crouch almost instantly, his wings dropping and turning, displaying the underside of his feathers to Gabriel as they stretched across the floor before him. He didn’t miss the grimace on the seraph’s face at his own actions but their places had been marked. Regardless of Castiel’s repeated risings from the dead and Gabriel’s recent stint as a wounded mute, it was still the archangel that held the power here.

**“Brother, please.”**

Gabriel ignored his younger brother, gaze turning back to Dean, who was looking at Castiel in confusion, a line dug like an ugly trench between his brows. Gabriel snorted. “Eyes up here, Winchester.” Dean looked back at him and Gabriel could see it as the self-righteousness of The Righteous Man fell over his face like a bride’s veil. He snorted, loudly, interrupted the beginning of the coming tirade.

“Careful how you wag that tongue of yours. I’d hate to have to snap it out of your mouth.”

“Is that the archangel equivalent of sewing someone’s mouth shut?”

Gabriel actually felt the temperature of the bunker drop. He thought Castiel might have attempted to say something, or might have actually said something, but then Dean was across the room, back slamming into the wall hard enough to leave a dent, and Gabriel was after him. Forget posturing. His wings had once been used as weapons in a war that shook Heaven. They were not so broken that they could not sheer the skin from this foolish human’s body and leave him a prone and bleeding mess that would _beg_ for Hell.

**“Gavri’el!”** Castiel appeared in front of him, wings flared open, feathers splayed. They stretched out across the bunker, a single pair of burned, black wings, coated eternally with the ash of Hell, and Gabriel snarled to see them so sullied, and for this pathetic excuse for a human. Gabriel would gladly wash him from the Earth and leave his soul pining for Heaven from the Void.

He moved forward, grace and wings shoving Castiel aside, but the younger angel pushed back. Bright black wings met his own muted gold and Gabriel was reminded that he was so far from full strength it was almost laughable. He expected the seraph to beat him back as any of his older brothers would have done in this instance, take advantage of his weakness to _put him in his place_. He prepared for the indignity of being beaten into the ground by one of the last angels his Father had created.

Instead, black feathers entwined with his, more gentle than any touch Gabriel had felt in a long time, and he felt his grace shiver at the sensation. He forced his wings to stay firm, to stay ready for the catch, for the trick, but Castiel only moved closer. His wings spread out along the length of Gabriel’s, the sensation of being touched with another’s grace so foreign as to be overwhelming, and Gabriel shut his eyes. He felt the betraying shiver of his vessel’s body and forced his wings to stay splayed and not curl around Castiel like they longed to do. Curl around him and soak up that familiar and welcoming grace.

Castiel’s vessel was disgustingly warm and Gabriel didn’t appreciate it at all. He certainly didn’t appreciate long arms wrapping tightly about his body in a filthy mockery of wings and holding him in an embrace that was both firm and gentle. And he didn’t like the way Castiel’s grace practically purred against his, welcoming and warm, like a happy greeting and a warm blanket and a plate of cookies and home.

**“Fuck you, Cassie,”** Gabriel hissed to his ear, his voice choked, even as his own arms came up and grasped at the ridiculous coat his brother wore, fingers tightening in the fabric to ground himself. **“Fuck you and your Righteous Man and every human who ever held the name Winchester.”**

Castiel only held him tight, their temples pressed together and the feathers of their wings braided together, grace singing songs of welcome and home.

**“I missed you too, brother.”**

* * *

Finding Sam was more difficult than Gabriel would have anticipated.

It shouldn’t have been difficult. Gabriel should have been able to fly right to him. He should have been able to sniff out Sam’s soul like a bloodhound, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t and it didn’t make sense because Gabriel _knew_ Sam’s soul. Ridiculously, that idiot boy’s soul was like a favored book whose lines he couldn’t erase from his memory. Every strand of his soul was seared across his mind like a flash of lightning scarred across the dark. He couldn’t unsee the way his soul burned bright despite every patch of darkness that had been brutally beaten into it with the cruelty only the forces of Heaven and Hell could manage. He knew Sam Winchester’s soul as well as he knew his own grace, so _why couldn’t he find him?_

As the hours passed, each one feeling like a day that never ended, he wished he could find solace in the sleep that Dean refused to entertain. He wings ached constantly but the pain was still less than that of his grace, which seemed to scream inside of him as though calling out to the part of itself that had been stolen. And yet the scream did not seem one of rage or even loss of self. There was only a longing and the desire to fly to places Gabriel could not find, could not name, could not reach.

He found himself wandering the bunker aimlessly. Found himself appearing again and again in the room that he had stayed in while he was here under the care of Sam Winchester. It took him three visits to the room before he realized that it wasn’t a room designated to him. Took him too long to realize that his grace kept carrying him back to the room because it belonged to _Sam_.

And what did it say that he felt no slight at not being granted his own room when Sam had very clearly wanted him to stay? What did he say that he felt more from the fact that Sam had offered up his own room than a blank and impersonal place in this bunker? For someone like Sam, who had had so much taken from him in his life, to give up that privacy and safe space to _him_ of all people…

It meant something.

It meant a lot of somethings.

His feet carried him aimlessly through the bunker, past empty rooms and rooms filled with junk and the worried eyes of his brother and the accusing eyes of Dean. He wandered with the feel of years weighing on his grace, the age of this building like a storm of memory in his mind, begging to whisper stories to him, to tell him tale after tale of the people who lived and fought and loved and learned and died within her walls.

_But you are not Sam,_ he whispered back and did not open his grace to the memories this place held. He did not have time for them now, when his wings and grace and mind all seemed to ache and pull in the same direction, drawing him again down a familiar hall, to a familiar door, and into a room that seemed more and more like Sam each time he entered it.

His wings felt heavy as he stepped through the doorway, weighed down by his own inability. He longed to fly, fast and hard, to wherever Sam was, but he was a bird without a northbound call, a wolf without a sky to howl at. An angel without reason or rhyme or heaven or home. An angel almost without grace at all.

He was useless here.

Something burns in the air, like the taste of electric heat on a winter morning, and Gabriel lifts his head from where he has been studying the floor. He finds his eyes assaulted by the top-common plaid pattern and feels a sigh slide over his lips, preparing himself for dealing with Dean. The boy becomes more vitriolic as each minute passes, fear and anger and helplessness and exhaustion boiling together in a brew of volcanic proportions. Castiel has kept them from killing each other (and Gabriel does not doubt that Dean could kill him and would if given the chance and half a reason - and what does it say that he does not run?) but that can only last for so long before things come to a head. Gabriel finds himself more concerned for his brother than himself in this, for Castiel has already proven that he is ready and willing to put himself between them. He fears the answer were he to ask Castiel which side he would take in a battle between him and Dean.

He fears asking and becoming the brother he once fled Heaven to escape.

He steps forward, preparing to take on Dean Winchester’s obsessive rage, and the hunter turns to meet his gaze.

Hazel eyes.

Hazel. Not green. Ever-changing like the endless insulation of the horizon during the rise of the sun toward that great blue expanse. Gold and brown and dark and light and burning like autumn leaves as winter comes calling over winds and bringing change and sleep and ends with it.

Hazel eyes he knows so well. Too well. Almost as well as he knows the soul to whom they belong.

“Sam.” He feels the name ghost from his lips and does not know if he spoke it or if it was his grace that cried it out like loss and triumph, a Pyrrhic victory, a terrible burden that his wings shudder to bear even as they reach for it.

He reaches for Sam, not quite sure what he plans to do - make sure he’s real, check if he’s injured, maybe just hold him. When Sam flinches away from him, though, he feels something in him crack. Almost hears his vessel’s pointless heart slide apart. He forces himself to stop moving - and _Oh, Dad_ it might be the hardest thing he has ever done - and lowers his arms, but he feels Sam’s name slip from his mouth. The boy is shuddering in front of him, cringing away from him, and Gabriel is not so self-deluded as he doesn’t see how their positions are reversed. He never dared to look in a mirror during those moments - didn’t want to see the shadows that haunted his eyes or the way the wires--

He feels the shudder course through him, the perfect recollection gifted to all angels daring to take him back there, into Hell, into that cell, and he doesn’t think he can handle it. He thinks if he ends up back there, even in a memory, it will leave him broken in a way he cannot fix.

He sees Sam’s eyes, a flash of autumn in a gaze, and the haunted look makes something cold settle deep in his chest. “Sam, where are you?” he asked, desperation making his voice come out more weak and willowy than he intended. Sam didn’t answer him in words, but the way he looked at Gabriel, the look in his eyes, made his _grace_ stutter within him.

Sam’s image wavered like a heat mirage and Gabriel lunged forward with a strangled shout. He tried to grab Sam but his hands went right through where he had been standing. He staggered to a stop and stared at the empty space before him. Sam wasn’t there.

Had he ever been there? Or was it just an illusion? Just a figment of his imagination? Had those years as Asmodeus’ personal blood bank finally driven him the last few feet to crazy?

He heard footsteps behind him and felt Castiel’s presence like a warm summer rain, but it did nothing to soothe the ache that was worse than it had been, as though his wings were weeping grace.

He must not have looked very well because Castiel did not suffer the formalities Gabriel had come to expect from him. He was at the door only a moment before he charged into the room like an angry rooster. Gabriel didn’t realize he was trembling until Cas’ hand settled warm on his shoulder and he felt how cold the rest of him was.

“Gabriel,” Castiel murmured and a long arm wrapped around his back, pulling him tight against his brother’s chest. A warm hand settled against his forehead and Gabriel let out a whine, strangling the sound in his throat on a broken cough. “Brother, you’re freezing.” Castiel walked toward the door, pulling Gabriel with him. The archangel shuffled weakly along after his brother.

“Sam,” Gabriel murmured and felt Castiel pause, his steps slowing.

**”Gavri’el?”**

Gabriel forced his eyes open. When had he closed them? Castiel was looking at him, blue eyes concerned, and Gabriel ached to see that for reasons he didn’t care to examine… ever.

“ **I saw him, Castiel. Sam. He was here.”**

Castiel lifted his head and Gabriel felt his brother’s grace reach out, spread across the room. Grace brushed the walls like dewdrops, scattered across the floor. The room filled with the smell of a summer storm and Gabriel grabbed at his brother’s shoulders before he could stop himself, fingers digging into fabric and flesh in a desperate attempt to drag himself _closer_.

He would forever deny the sound that came out of his throat when Castiel retracted his grace. The smell of summer rain vanished as though it had never been - just another illusion of his mind - and Gabriel would have fallen to the floor if not for Castiel’s arms that wrapped tight around him. The younger angel lowered them to the ground and Gabriel couldn’t help but lean against him, trying to curl up into his warmth. He was just so cold.

That petrichor smell filled the room again and then Castiel’s wings swept forward, curling around them both. Gabriel shivered under the soft blanket of feathers and leaned his head on Castiel’s shoulder. He was exhausted, moreso than he had been since he’d first run from the bunker, and cold in a way he wasn’t sure he had _ever_ felt. But all his mind could focus on was hazel eyes and a wavering image.

“Sam?”

“I do not know. It is Sam’s room and it is filled with his presence. I am not sure what you saw, Gabriel, but I do not sense Sam here at all. I have not since he went missing.”

Gabriel closed his eyes and buried his face against Castiel’s shoulder.

So. He was mad.

Well, at least no one would be surprised.

* * *

He would have written it off as stress or even wishful delusions, except that wasn’t the last time it happened. Little more than an hour later, he was sitting on the bed, Sam’s bed, when the room wavered before him and the young man appeared.

Gabriel stood up so fast he felt his vessel’s blood pressure skyrocket. His grace automatically soothed away the side effects and he stared at the hunter.

Sam didn’t look good. The kid was staring blankly ahead, his focus nowhere near Gabriel. The angel dared to take a step forward. “Sam?”

Hazel eyes snapped to him and Gabriel went still, afraid of spooking the hunter into vanishing. If this was a delusion, then he was nuts. But if it wasn’t…

Gabriel stepped away from the bed with slow, careful movements, stopping the moment he saw Sam tense up. He forced himself to be still, forced his racing heart to settle. His lips tangled around the hunter’s name and he had to draw a human breath to steady nerves that shouldn’t have been so out of sorts.

“Where are you?” Gabriel asked, keeping his voice low. He sees Sam look at him, those eyes watching him with a gaze that radiates defeat like a cloud of poison, and he aches to see it. “Sam. Tell me where you are.”

But Sam only stares at him. He meets Gabriel’s gaze unflinchingly, but not reactively. Not the way you meet the gaze of someone who you are listening to for the story they have to tell, or someone you’re speaking to who you want to hear you words. Sam looks at him the way someone looks at an old photograph, as though all the possibilities that once existed were now trapped behind the plastic screen of a polaroid photo. Sam stared at him with a lifetime of regret burning like a brushfire in his eyes.

Gabriel met that gaze and this time he didn’t reach out for Sam with his hands. This time, he reached out with his grace.

Thin, cautious tendrils, like a scattered breeze inched forward, reaching for the place where Sam stood. He felt the cold first, like the flow of air that rushes to escape the opened door of an ice box. Gabriel shivered as he touched it, the sensation familiar in a way his mind did not want to define. Instead, he focused on Sam. Sam, who was there but not _here_. Sam, who was somehow projecting his presence, his soul, into the bunker, into Gabriel’s presence, but who wasn’t physically here with him.

Gabriel felt his mouth open slightly, words failing him. It should have been impossible. It was a technique capable of archangels, but humans? Not even the most powerful psychic should have been able to cast an illusion with _definition_.

But if any human could have managed it, it would have been this one.

But that still leaves the question of _where_ Sam _is_.

“Sam,” he chokes out, and this time he does reach for Sam with his hands. And Sam pulls away again, ducking his head and shrinking back and Gabriel’s insides _writhe_ at the rejection that feels like a physical blow, like a blade.

“Tell me where you are, Sam!” he yells, desperation and pain making his voice thick and harsh.

The world ripples away in front of him. _Sam_ ripples away, and Gabriel stumbles to the ground, shivering so hard he thinks his grace might shake right out of his vessel.

The cold is biting, searing through his skin and eating at what remains of his grace. His wings feel frostburnt and he imagines he can see his breath ghosting in front of his face. It takes him too long to notice Castiel’s presence, the great black wings wrapped around him, summer rain warm on his frozen skin.

“Sam?” he chokes out through chattering teeth.

“I don’t know.”

* * *

Sometimes he has an hour to recover between episodes. Other times, only minutes. Sam shies away from him each time he tries to reach out with his hands, so Gabriel learns not to. The hunter doesn’t shy from his grace and Gabriel cannot help how he wants to wrap the young man in golden winds and carry him home.

But he cannot get Sam to speak. The boy only looks at him with eyes that grow increasingly haunted as the minutes pass, hazel sunsets dulling to the dried copper of dead leaves, and Gabriel thinks he can hear his grace screaming to see it.

He begs.

“Sam, please.”

He offers platitudes.

“Come on, Sam. You know it was just a game, right? Helloooo, trickster.”

He makes promises.

“I swear to Dad, tell me where you are, Sam, and I’ll join your merry band of misfits. I’ll gank my brother for you. He probably deserves it anyway. Mikey always did have a stick up his ass.”

He screams obscenities, things he doesn’t care to think about, nevermind repeat. He shouts at empty rooms and Sam-shaped holes in the universe and bedsheets where a young man should be sleeping, because he looks like he hasn’t sleep in _years_. He swears in languages that have been dead for millennia and uses words that have been lost to time, but Sam never answers.

He only stares at Gabriel with eyes so filled with wishes, Gabriel doesn’t know how they don’t overflow and drown the world.

Gabriel stares back, reaches and touches and tastes with his grace. He ignores his brother, whose fierce whispers have long become white noise, and Dean, whose threats and fury have turned to horror-stricken eyes and a gaze that is too ruinous to contemplate. He knows what Dean believes - cold and hauntings and an angel’s ability to touch souls - but he knows better. He knows Sam. Sam doesn’t give up.

Sam once chased Loki across North America to ask “please.” Sam used soft words to make giant hands seem less daunting and cut the threads from Gabriel’s mouth. Sam touched him - the first gentle touch he’d felt in _years_ \- with kindness despite all he had done. Sam gave him back his _grace_.

Sam gave and gave and gave.

Gabriel closed his eyes.

Gabriel closed his eyes and let his wings relax, let them ease open.

Gabriel closed his eyes and loosened the tight hold he had on his grace.

Gabriel closed his eyes. He tasted the call of a soft breeze that carried Castiel’s petrichor grace. He felt the shudder of the trees outside the bunker against the unfettered Kansas wind. He felt the tilt of every grassblade, the scatter of every grain of sand, the flap of every bird’s wing against the movement of the world. He felt air, life in lungs and the cast of seeds and birth and flight and tides and the promise of a coming morning.

Gabriel closed his eyes and let the wind take him where it would.

* * *

He opens his eyes and for a long moment, he can only stare. His emotions are too scrambled to define. The world is full-bodied canopies of leaves holding fast to strong branches stretched against a vaulting sky. The grass is greener than the richest fields of Ireland and the birds sing songs of peace and love and home.

He sinks to his knees in a field softer than his feathers and tears roll unhindered down his face.

He is home.

He cannot resist laying down on his back and spreading his wings. For the first time since his mouth was bound, his wings do not ache. The sun is bright and warm on his feathers and the grass is soft beneath him. He spreads all six wings out and stretches them as far as he can, revels in the feel of freedom and being unbound. The air smells of sweet honeysuckle and deep pine, warm sands and salty brine, and blood.

He sits up abruptly, his wings snapping to attention behind him, and scans the immediate area. The scent of blood has not vanished but grown stronger and Gabriel’s grace writhes within him like a bed of snakes, twisting around themselves and hissing in rage and pain.

The smell of the blood is arbitrary. It is the smell of _soul_ that truly has his attention. It is ferocious and heady, too strong to be safe, and too recognizable by far. After all, Gabriel knows Sam Winchester’s soul better than his own grace, but this is like the smell of life blood pouring from a mortal wound. But there is more. The taste of salt on his tongue, the smell of the electrical charge of a storm and the violent waves of an angry sea. A sound just on the edge of his hearing, like a song in a thousand voices and yet just one. A lovely song that called out promises and spoke of dreams. It was tempting to simply listen to it, but the draw of Sam’s soul was greater still.

He made his way to his feet, tucking his wings down and walking through the thick fields of grass. Unlike the untamed meadows of the Earth, the grass here does not tangle his feet and try to trip him. Softer than down feathers, the grass eases like water before his steps. He walks with ease across miles, but he never stumbles or grows weary and the world around him remains green and unerringly beautiful, just as he remembered it from when he would spend centuries in these fields.

Lying on his back in the grass, the tips of his feathers brushing those of his older brothers’, watching the movement of clouds in the sky. Lucifer would twist the waters of the clouds into shapes and Gabriel would coax the wind to make them move. More than once, a herd of rabbits would chase across the sky to the sounds of fledgling laughter. Twisting ethereal dragons would breathe lightning and a pack of wolves would howl thunderous songs. Clouds would swim like fish through the blue, chasing Gabriel with rain pouring from their bellies. He remembers how he would shriek with laughter, his wings beating the air, trying to outrun a sea of clouds. And his brother’s laughter would chase him, warm and bright, as Lucifer always was.

The memory was a good one despite the pain he felt at the recollection. It was one of those unattainable moments - something he had once had that could never be again. Gabriel had always been close to Lucifer and his older brother’s loss still weighed on him. Even more the proof of that loss all those years ago at the Elysian Hotel, when Lucifer had killed him (at least so far as everyone else was concerned). But the memories were a gift he would keep with him, glad to have them despite the pain.

His mind fed him memories of adventures climbing trees and leaping from the tops, wings spread to glide across the forest. He remembered nights spent counting the stars, laughing when they realized Father had snuck in a few more when they weren’t looking. He remembered tracing patterns with his wings from one star to the next and giving them names. He remembered laughing in a way he hadn’t laughed in so long, and he remembered loving so deeply that there were no words that could explain it, only feelings. Grace against grace, feathers entwined, sharing across a bond that only belonged to brothers as close as they were.

Gabriel had missed this place.

So lost was he in his recollections that he almost forgot why he was here, until he lowered his head from gazing at the sky and there was Sam.

The hunter was lying on his back in the grass, arms folded behind his head and staring at the sky. Gabriel followed his gaze to find that the clouds were twisted into vague shapes. He noted the form of what appeared to be a racing horse, a twisting serpent, and a wolf, before he turned his gaze back to Sam.

His senses in regards to the hunter are clearer here than they were at the bunker. He can feel Sam’s presence, but more than that, he can feel his emotions. They are easily distinguishable, swimming off his skin in a way that is familiar and relieving to Gabriel. Sam Winchester has always, in his experience, worn his heart on his sleeve. It wasn’t tears that swayed Gabriel that day after the Mystery Spot. He didn’t need to see the tears to know the grief in Sam’s heart, but Gabriel’s empathic abilities had always been disgustingly strong.

Now, Sam’s soul bleeds wonder as he stares at the clouds. Gabriel wonders if it is their shapes that make the hunter’s heart shine so brightly or if there is something more to it. He finds himself looking around the area where Sam has settled, trying to see this world from his perspective. It has a history for Gabriel, but what does it hold for Sam that he is drawn here?

The ramifications of Sam’s presence _here_ do not escape Gabriel. If the young hunter is slipping in and out of Heaven, then his condition is more dire than Gabriel feared and he _must_ learn where the young man is. He can not risk any further delays and so he knows he must be careful not to make the hunter flee from him. His approach will need to be different, but he hopes the peace of this place and his easier read on Sam’s emotions will help him there.

It is the flash of grief that draws his attention initially, but it’s followed by a sudden influx of _thoughts_ that tremble against his own mind. Grief and hopefulness and then _here be here wish you real here happy safe._

It is only long acquaintance with his own ability to read minds that keep him from reacting. He forces himself to remain still, to take a breath, to think through it. With the exception of well-practiced telepaths, humans’ thoughts tended to be jumbled unless consciously strung like spoken words, but Gabriel’s mind translates the message almost instantly. He releases his drawn breath in a sigh of amusement and exasperation. How can this single human so consistently surprise him? Gabriel would have thought himself at the top of the list of creatures to be forever loathed for what they had done, yet here is Sam, wishing he were happy and healthy and safe and _here._ Which of course means he thinks Gabriel isn’t.

He looks at the boy, his eyebrows furrowing. Sam is staring at him, his attention pulled from the cloud-scattered sky. Where does Sam think he is? What does he think Gabriel is if he is not real?

He doesn’t voice the question or even project it consciously, so it speaks highly of Sam’s mental acuity that the answer is murmured on an almost instantaneous thought. _Illusion. Always illusion. Never real._

Something in Gabriel’s stupid human heart breaks at the lonely defeat in that thought and it takes everything in him not to reach out and just hold Sam. But he knows from experience that the boy will flee if he tries, and this dream or connection or whatever it is will fade again. Gabriel can not afford to let it fade again. He can tell Sam has little time left. If he is here in Heaven, even if only on the cusp of it, then he can make no more mistakes.

He forces a smile, something like one of his grins before everything went to Hell (literally). He suspects only his millennia of practice wearing masks makes it a smile and not a grimace, but he turns his head away and goes back to studying the landscape to hide his worry. If he messes up again, if he loses Sam because he wasn’t fast enough…

He doesn’t let himself finish the thought. It is too terrible a consideration to give life even in his own mind.

Sam says nothing, which of course is nothing new. For a while, the only sound is the rustle of the wind through the leaves and the call of birdsong. Gabriel listens for a time, listens to the stories the birds tell of Heaven, some of them beautiful tales of old, but many of them stories of more recent times, and it makes Gabriel’s grace ache to know how far Heaven has fallen. They have much to make up for if what these birds sing of is true, and Gabriel doesn’t know if they are capable of such a thing.

He finds himself humming, the soft tune of a song older than the Earth whispering nostalgic notes across the meadow. The birds cease their talk of current events and begin to sing along with him. It is the first time since Lucifer’s Fall that he has sung a song from his fledgling days and had another creature join in. His grace thrums in pleasure within him and when he feels the whisper of quiet gratitude from Sam, he lets the song slide into another without pause. He sinks down into the tall grass at Sam’s head and hums a song he once sang to the stars when he was teaching them how to shine.

His fingers reach out almost of their own accord to brush an errant strand of Sam’s hair back from his face. It is something he used to do with his fledgling brothers and sisters when they were lying by his side, exhausted from flying lessons and breathless with laughter and pride. It is easy to do it now, sink his fingers into long, warm locks and smooth them out.

The emotions and thoughts from Sam jumble together but Gabriel untangles them just as carefully as he untangles the strands of Sam’s hair. He is an illusion as far as Sam is concerned - has been an illusion from the start, nothing more than a wishful thought brought forth by a mind running hard out of hope. This place, this field, is an escape for Sam’s mind. He has no idea it is his soul here, no idea that here is Heaven, and Gabriel can feel the tears as they slide with careless ease down his cheeks. How long has Sam been coming here? How often has this place served as a refuge for his soul, and from what?

He restrains himself from demanding answers, though he needs to know, _needs to know_ in a way that he has rarely needed anything before. He forces himself to stay calm, to consider the fragility of Sam’s soul, here in Heaven, and his mind, so certain that all of this is a hallucination and not fighting it, because the alternative - the reality - is worse.

Gabriel’s grace twists within him, coiling like an injured serpent at his center. He can feel his wings pressed flush against his back but he keeps his hands gentle as they card through soft locks. The notes of a song of healing and peace rumble low in his chest.

He hears the thoughts, errant and uncalculated, that whisper from Sam’s mind. The boy is half asleep in peace and exhaustion and his thoughts carry easily. Wishes and wants and Gabriel hears them, thinks that he could give Sam this if only he could find him. Thinks he would give almost anything for the chance to spend every day running his fingers through Sam’s hair and listening to his dreams.

He leans forward without thinking, presses a kiss to Sam’s temple and lets his lips linger just a hair’s breadth from his skin.

He prays that Sam’s half-asleep state will make him more likely to answer, that he will not flee from Gabriel like he has all times before. He doesn’t grip the boy’s arms tight like he wishes to, desperate to keep him here. His fingers are only pressed lightly against Sam’s head, thumb smoothing over the soft strands of hair at his temple as though that will keep Sam calm. As though it will keep Gabriel calm.

“Tell me how to find you, Sam-a-Lamb,” he whispers, keeping his voice as low and calm as he is able. He continues to hum, hoping that the song will soothe Sam’s mind against the question.

He sees the tears slide down from Sam’s eyes, whispering into his hair, and his wings draw forward, desperate to wipe them away and wrap Sam tight in warmth and love. Sam’s voice cracks beneath the weight of hopelessness when he finally, finally speaks. “He won’t let me go.”

“Who?”

Hazel eyes open to peer up at him. There is a sunset in that gaze and the sinking light that burns in it makes Gabriel’s grace tremble. There is a farewell there painted in hues of brown, green, and gold and it scares Gabriel almost as much as Sam’s next word.

“Asmodeus.”

* * *

“I thought you came here to help us save him! How could you leave him there?” Dean slammed his hands down on the desk and Gabriel resolutely didn’t allow himself to flinch. “Sam’s god knows where and you’re just floating all over the place as you like? I thought you were better than that. _Sam_ thought you were better!”

Gabriel didn’t defend himself. There was nothing he could say that would excuse what he had done. He had fled. The moment that name came from Sam’s lips, Gabriel’s wings were carrying him as far away as they could as fast as they could.

He’d ended up somewhere in the depths of the Sahara, sand burning the skin of his feet and the sun blazing against his shoulders. He’d sank into raging hot sands and convulsed with cold.

It had taken hours before he was capable of standing. He’d barely managed to get his wings to function, all six of them plastered to his back and refusing to move.

Hours.

And Sam was in Hell.

Heaven and Hell ran on the same fucking schedule so Gabriel knew how long he had left Sam in Hell - left Sam with _Asmodeus_ \- while he freaked out like a child in the world’s biggest sandbox.

He deserved everything Dean threw at him. Words. A punch. A blade. Gabriel would accept it all as his due. He’d left Sam there to die. He knew it.

He was the worst sort of angel.

“Enough.” Castiel didn’t yell but his voice held all the command of the garrison leader he had once been. He stepped between the two of them but he faced Dean and his words were very obviously meant for the hunter. “That is enough.”

“But he—”

“Gabriel is trying to help despite the fact that he is still injured from his own time spent in Hell.”

“Shut up, Cassie, I’m fine.”

“You are not,” Castiel snapped, turning toward him, “and it is very obvious to anyone who cares to look.” When Gabriel sneered at him, Castiel asked quietly, “How many of your wings are working, Gabriel?”

His wings flattened against his back and he met his brother’s gaze stubbornly. “My wings are _fine_.”

“And yet that doesn’t actually answer my question.”

The two stared at each other for a moment but Castiel’s stubbornness exceeded Gabriel’s willingness to fight. “Only one pair,” he murmured, looking away. “The largest pair.”

“Are the others injured?”

Gabriel shrugged one shoulder, his largest wing flexing with the movement and shaking out his feathers before settling. “They ache.” Ache wasn’t the right word, of course. It was more than that. They burned. Burned with cold. And they screamed like his feathers were being yanked out by the handful, grace bleeding out into the world and leaving him with less than the meager supply he had.

He thought he might be Falling.

He wouldn’t say that, though. Gabriel the Archangel has _some_ pride left and Dean Winchester didn’t need to know every sordid detail of his weakness and failure. He didn’t bother to look over at the hunter, didn’t want to see the look on his face that spoke of how much he thought Gabriel deserved every ache. And he did. Oh, he deserved so much more than the simple pain of failing wings and grace. He’d left _Sam_ , even knowing that the boy had little time left to him. He’d fled like the coward he had always been.

**“Gavri’el.”**

“Mm?” Gabriel looked up, meeting Castiel’s blue eyes. The younger angel looked deeply concerned, as though he had called Gabriel more than once.

**“Where is your attention, brother?”**

He did seem to be having trouble focusing. It was so easy to slip away mentally and become lost in his thoughts. This wasn’t unusual, of course, but angels by nature could split their attention easily. It was what allowed them to perform so many duties, to be in multiple places at once, at least consciously (not that Gabriel hadn’t managed to be in multiple places at once physically before, but he wasn’t sure others had performed the same temporal quick-step or even realized they could). Now, though, he could barely be present in one place.

**“Gavri’el, where is Samuel?”**

**“Asmodeus has him.”** He’d said that already. It’s what had made him flee Sam’s side - flee Heaven again. That name like the feeling of a needle through his lips and a needle in his wing. Grace torn from his insides and every sense of privacy and freedom shredded before his eyes.

**“Where, Gavri’el?”**

The world torn out from under his feet and cold bars and the smell of blood and ichor heavy in the air. Darkness and the sense of being so far underground he would never see the sun again, never touch the sky, never feel the wind. Cruel eyes and a crueler smile and the feel of a blade slicing through the skin of his feet. The taste of metal at his lips and the sick-sweet tang of blood running down his throat, wanted-unwanted-wanted-unwanted-wanted-unwanted-wanted-unwanted—

“Hell,” he choked out, bending over and breathing hard, sucking in the musty air of the bunker to try and chase away the taste of demon blood and his own grace. “The cell. M-mine.” He shuddered.

“What do you mean _your cell_?” Dean demanded.

Gabriel’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. He thought of a million answers to the idiotic question, each one more sarcastic than the one before it. He hadn’t been holed up in a brothel with the prince-turned-king of Hell. He’d been in a cage. Like a fucking _dog_.  

He opened his mouth to say… anything. Maybe just to tell Dean Winchester to fuck the hell off. But he couldn’t make the words come. No matter that his lips had been unbound, that Sam had cut the threads that bound them. He couldn’t make himself speak.

And a thought occurred to him. A horrible thought he hoped was the delusion of a creature that had gone insane from pain; a madness-born contemplation that would prove unfounded and foolish beyond measure.

But all he could think about was thread woven through lips, binding a mouth shut. Thread woven through _Sam’s_ lips and silencing Gabriel by proxy.

Because Sam kept appearing to him. Kept appearing like a ghost in front of him, even when he had flown to Heaven - flown to Heaven following the whim of his own wind-born grace. Called to Sam as Sam seemed to be continuously called to him.

He could still taste it on his lips, almost overpowered by the rotting smell of demon blood, but too powerful to be eclipsed. Grace. _His_ grace. Asmodeus had been feeding Sam his _grace_. No wonder he couldn’t focus. No wonder he couldn’t escape the cold, which grew worse after each encounter with Sam’s projected presence. The grace in him and the grace in Sam were trying to find each other, trying to get back together, trying to heal.

Gabriel flung his wings open, all six of them, and drew the remaining grace to them. He heard Dean shout as every light above them exploded beneath the force of his grace, but he ignored the hunter. Too much time had already been wasted on Dean Winchester’s hypocrisy.

Gabriel drew himself up to his full height and brought all of his focus to his grace, summoned his power and demanded that his grace seek out the rest of what had been taken from him. Find it and follow it and find Sam there at the end of the trail like the pot of gold under the bend of a rainbow. He drew his wings down, a furious thrust against time and space that should have carried him to Hell in a moment, less than a second, before he could blink.

He didn’t move.  

Gabriel waited for a moment, waited, ridiculously, for delayed flight, but there was no movement of the world around him. He felt ice like fingers trail up his spine as he realized that it was too late. He couldn’t get to Sam. He couldn’t fly at all. He had already Fallen. His wings were gone. They were gone and he was just a human. Less than human. He was a once-angel who spent too much time as a Pagan god to know how to do anything beyond snap his fingers and grin. He couldn’t help Sam. He couldn’t even help himself.

Strong fingers gripped the back of his neck and forced his head down. The smell of fresh rain and the sound of water pattering on tin filled his mind and Gabriel let himself be maneuvered. He was freezing cold, his skin prickled with gooseflesh, and he just couldn’t stop shaking.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s having a panic attack, Dean.” Little brother sounded monumentally exasperated. It would’ve been funny if Gabriel had had breath enough to laugh.

“But he’s an archangel.”

Castiel scoffed. It was his fingers digging their blunt nails into the flesh of Gabriel’s vessel’s neck. His neck. Human neck.

Something warm draped over his back, pressing down firmly and grounding him. Gabriel shivered hard beneath the soft blanket and couldn’t contain the hitched whine that escaped his throat.

“Not even angels are immune to torture and Gabriel has suffered a great deal. Have some compassion, Dean.” Castiel’s palm was warm where it cupped Gabriel’s forehead. He could feel something flitting around in his mind, like raindrops pattering across his consciousness, fluttering through thoughts and memories and making everything smell like a summer storm.

The hand smoothed away sweat with a gentle touch and then Castiel’s forehead pressed against his.

“Gavri’el. Listen to me.” Hands gripped his shoulders tightly, fingers squeezing to grasp his flagging attention. “Brother, you have not Fallen. Your grace was taken from you but you still bear your wings. You still rage like a hurricane beneath my hands, Gavri’el.”

Some part of Gabriel’s mind recognized that Castiel was speaking in English. No doubt for the benefit of Dean. Always the angel who held faith, who loved humanity despite their many flaws, his little brother. In the back of his mind, he knew why Castiel was doing it. Speaking to him in a language the older hunter would understand so he would _understand_.

Gabriel didn’t need Dean Winchester to understand him. Gabriel needed his wings, his grace. Gabriel needed to be able to fly. He needed Sam.

_“Gabriel,_ I _need you.”_

He needed Sam.

Sam who was lost to them. Sam, who he had abandoned. Sam, who he had wronged again and again.

**_“Gavri’el!”_ ** Castiel’s cry echoed with the barest edge of his True Voice. Dean squawked in surprise but neither angel paid him any mind. Castiel’s hands moved from his shoulders, cupping his face. Fingers curled around the back of his head, burying themselves in his hair, and Castiel pressed his forehead to Gabriel’s.

**_“Brother, hear me. Messenger. Strength of Our Father. Hear my words and understand. You are not Fallen and Samuel Winchester is not lost to us._ **

“Please, Gabriel,” Castiel said, letting his True Voice fall away, sliding back into English. “Do not lose yourself to this fear. Do not let Asmodeus take you from us. You are here, brother. Now _be here_.”

Castiel doesn’t let go of him. His hand on Gabriel’s shoulder is a weight that he can focus on and he uses it gratefully, centering himself around the feeling of that warmth on his arm, the gentle touch of a brother, the tingling sensation of grace like warm rain on his skin. He can feel Castiel’s grace. And the weight on his back isn’t a blanket but Castiel’s wing draped heavy and warm over his shoulders. The feathers tickle his neck and he can feel them rubbing against the feathers of his own wings, black tangling with gold. His wings, all six of them, are still there at his back. He closes his eyes and breathes, tastes the wind and all the stories it has to tell him, and focuses on the fact that if he didn’t have his grace, all this would be silence and blindness. He is here. He is still Gabriel. He is not Fallen.

His hands come up slowly, fingers wrapping around Castiel’s forearms and just clinging for a moment. The scent of petrichor is heavy in the air, a storm waiting to let loose, and Gabriel breathes deep of the grace that is his little brother.

“Castiel,” he murmurs, the name warming lips that felt numb with cold. He blinks slowly, focusing, attention sharpening, and his mind traces back over his brother’s words, taking a moment to understand them now that he is here. He feels his lips curve in a small smirk and his eyes slide to meet Castiel’s bright blue gaze. The younger angel’s earnest expression and obvious concern are disgustingly touching. He rolls his eyes. “You always were incredibly bossy.”

“The Winchesters seem to have rubbed off on me.”

“No.” That got an actual smile out of Gabriel. “No, this is definitely a Castiel trait. I remember. Bossy little fledgling, always telling me how to comb your wings.”

“You kept making them stand on end!” Castiel cried, affronted, and Gabriel let out a breathless laugh that left him startled. “You-you kept calling me your little porcupine!”

Gabriel scrubbed a hand through Castiel’s hair, making it stand up straight. “Still are.”

Castiel’s look of indignation faded into something softer. Not a smile - Castiel had so rarely smiled, even in Heaven - but something like the way Gabriel remembered him being as a child. Alert and curious and so desperate for his brothers’ approval.

He wishes now he’d made it more clear that Castiel had always had his. Had always made him proud.

“You never made it a secret,” Castiel says quietly, pressing his forehead back against Gabriel’s as the archangel realized he was projecting his thoughts to the younger still. He grimaced but Castiel didn’t appear concerned at hearing his  unintentional thoughts. “Sam Winchester, brother.”

Of course, there were more important things.

**“I can feel him through your grace,”** Castiel spoke in quiet Enochian. **“You are bonded?”**

Gabriel shook his head slightly, not enough to dislodge their position. **“Not like you and Dean. Asmodeus. He’s been feeding Sam grace.”**

**“And demon blood,”** Castiel guessed, putting it together more quickly than Gabriel had. The younger angel shut his eyes, looking pained. **“We must get him away from Asmodeus and quickly. You couldn’t find him?”**

**“I tried to latch onto my grace and follow it, but it wouldn’t…”** The irrational belief that he had Fallen had seen logic - his wings were here and he could feel his grace against Castiel’s - but the fear and the memory of terror still lingered. **“I could not fly to him.”**

Castiel nodded slowly. **“But you are here, and so is your grace. And Asmodeus may have… taken precautions.”** He spoke the last part carefully but Gabriel did nothing more than sigh in defeat.

**“I couldn’t fly away. I tried. Even when I was at my most powerful,”** not that that had been particularly powerful at all, but he’d had _some_ grace, **“I couldn’t get away. It was warded just enough to keep me from escaping without something to guide me.”**

**“So,”** Castiel said slowly, **“you need an anchor.”**

* * *

It takes almost an hour of meditation, Castiel sitting with him and lending his grace like a crutch, before Gabriel is able to find Sam.

It’s just his grace that travels this time - his consciousness - because Sam is in between places and to track him would take more grace than they have between them. It is easier to reach Sam in his mind, but as Gabriel slides in between one thought and the next, part of him wishes he hadn’t come.

It is Heaven again, or the memory of Heaven, but it is warped.

The trees that once held thick armfuls of leaves are dead and bare, their branches cracked and black against a storm-grey sky. The grass is yellow and brown, hard and sharp beneath his feet, and the birds are silent, gone. Dead, more like. Dead like this vision of Heaven.

Dead like Sam is so close to being.

He can feel it. This vision of a home he so terribly missed falters under the weight of Sam’s failing body, his weakening mind. Gabriel has so very little time and he only hopes enough remains of Sam for this to work. If he fails, he does not know what he will do.

“Sam.”

Sam looks in his direction but his eyes are fevered, pupils too large, and his gaze wanders. But his thoughts are clear, which is as much a blessing as a curse. They are not too late for Sam to hear him and understand, but Gabriel is thrown off kilter by Sam’s thoughts, heard so clearly in this dying version of his home. Sam thinks of himself as not worth saving, of being an abomination in the eyes of all angels and something to be taken out behind a house and put down.

It wounds Gabriel to hear them, and it makes him want to wound. The need for Judgment rises in both parts of him - the Archangel and the Pagan Trickster. But those desires can wait. For now, there is Sam, here but not here, and Gabriel needs to find him.

“Stay, Sam,” he whispers, reaching out with his grace to brush at the splintering soul of this young man, who has been broken too many times and always by people who should have loved him. “Stay with me.”

Sam’s thoughts are a murmured backdrop to this world, weaving in and out of his attention as he draws as much of himself here as he can, using what little grace he can spare to fortify this young man’s dimming soul, to try and piece together the bright life that is fading before him.

Sam’s attention wavers in and out and Gabriel is left calling to him, using his grace to draw the young man back to him. He fears burning Sam’s mind with the presence of so much grace but when his attention is caught, Sam’s eyes never waver. Gabriel can feel the grace pooling behind his eyes, sitting heavy on his back where his wings have taken form even in this place between wakefulness and endless sleep.

Sam’s eyes move between Gabriel’s eyes and a spot just over his shoulder and he has enough presence of mind to be in awe at the impossibility of this human, who can look at him, can look through the vessel that hides him, and not be destroyed by the sight. He can feel Sam’s awe reflected back at him like a mirror and it is humbling to feel how this human sees him, how he sees Gabriel and thinks that he was what angels were always meant to be.

Gabriel lowers himself to his knees next to Sam’s prone form, bends over him so his lips are right next to Sam’s ear. He fears touching him, fears him fleeing into that endless light and never waking from Heaven’s grandeur, but he gets as close as he can. His wings unfold behind him, blanketing the world above them and turning the grey skies into blazing sunshine. He feels Sam’s amazement, the gratitude of his soul at the sensation of warmth, and watches the tears slip from Sam’s eyes to roll down his cheeks.

There are tears on Gabriel’s cheeks, too.

“Sam. Pray for me.”

_Take me home,_ he hears, a plea carried on a tide of confusion. Even now, Sam doesn’t understand where he is. Doesn’t understand that Gabriel is _real_ and can be there if only Sam will _pray._

He needs an anchor.

“Pray for me, Sam, so I can find you.”

It is an old prayer Sam speaks. Peripherally, Gabriel recognizes it, but he pays little attention to the words. It is not the _words_ that matter. It is Sam. It the the feeling and the soul that is put into a prayer that tell the true story of the one speaking it, and even this prayer, pulled from a book and memorized over years, carries the weight of Sam’s brilliant, beautiful soul.

Behind him, beside him, he can feel Castiel’s grace. His little brother is reaching out with his own grace and trying to strengthen Gabriel’s. He can’t reach for the prayer - it is not meant for him - but he acts as a stepping stone for Gabriel’s weakened grace and he takes the offer of assistance gladly.

Following Sam’s soul is easy once he has the prayer to guide him. It is both a walkway and an air current. Gabriel races down the path as fast as he can, feeling the crumbling of Sam’s soul like a building collapsing beneath and around him. He knows the moment he passes through Asmodeus’ pathetic if inventive wards and he deliberately shatters every one of them upon his entrance, flinging his wings out in an eruption of grace that makes the bars of his former cell shatter into dust.

It takes him a moment to fully land, his grace and his body traveling from different locations. His body snaps into place in the center of the cell and his grace slides back inside it like a snake slithering back into a basket. His wings stretch as he settles, passing through the walls that do not exist on the same dimension and so cannot contain him.  

Sam’s thoughts murmur in and out of frequency, louder here but less defined, like a radio signal going out of range. He can feel Sam’s awe and shock, but it was the resigned level of dread that has Gabriel tearing the rest of way into his vessel, forcing his trueform and grace in with inelegant desperation..

His wings fold down over his back, feathers dragging the filthy stone floor, but Gabriel pays them little mind. He has little attention left for anything but the other person in the cell, because Sam…

There is blood around Sam’s mouth and down his throat. It stains the front of his ragged shirt and stands out stark against pale skin. His hair is limp and dull and matted with tangles and dried blood. Gabriel’s mind moves too quickly, taking information in faster than his heart can process, because Sam has clearly been tortured. There is so much damage, not just to his body but to his soul, and Gabriel can barely process it all. He is overwhelmed, his rage and disgust and terror screaming within him like a cyclone, threatening to rip him apart and scatter his feathers and grace like so much ash across the room.

A strangled, choking cry breaks through and catches Gabriel’s attention. Sam’s body shudders as he face contorts in pain and Gabriel sees the sudden flare of his soul like a candle flame, flickering bright just before it is snuffed out.

His wings give a ragged flap and he falls to his knees at Sam’s side. He grasps the boy’s head in his hands, turning those hazel eyes toward him, but they are already glazed, focus fading.

There are tears on Sam’s cheeks and Gabriel brushes them away with his thumbs, even as he feels the cascade of his own tears pour hot down his face.

“Sam,” he chokes out, a plea and a prayer, but there is no light left in hazel eyes. The sun has set.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel does not have the grace necessary to heal Sam, but if he can hold onto Sam's soul, then Castiel can help him heal the younger Winchester. But what if Sam doesn't want to stay? What if Gabriel has to let him go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: This is not the last chapter. Or the last fic. Because I can't write short things. ;) Enjoy!

**Chapter Three**

He might as well be human for all the good his grace is. Might as well be less than human, less than a worm, for all that he is able to do for Sam. Superior angelic senses are a curse he would Fall to escape because he can feel Sam’s skin cooling beneath his touch, every degree it fades like a knife digging into his chest. His grace, pathetic dregs like the brown slop of loose tea in the bottom of a drained cup, writhe within him, screaming. _Heal,_ his mind-grace-heart begs, wrapping Sam in a thin layer of what remains of himself, but though his grace tries there is no strength left in it to put together what has been so badly broken.

And he can feel Sam’s soul, shattered, dim little thing that it is, humming apologetically as it loosens itself from the body that has contained it all these years. It comes away too easily, proof that this is not the first time it has been separated from its vessel, and Gabriel thinks ridiculously of super glue and duct tape and staples.

“Sam,” he murmurs, thumbs brushing the tears from the boy’s cheeks as gently as his shaking hands are able. “Please.”

He doesn’t know what he expects. Maybe a miracle, and the thought is enough to make him laugh bitterly. He has learned over long years here on Earth and longer still in cells and laid out on rocks and bound, that miracles are nothing more than a magician’s tricks. Pretty and distracting, but nothing more. Not for centuries now. Not since Heaven was emptied of anyone who might have strength to care.

So it comes as an absolute surprise when Sam _responds to his call_.

It’s nothing so dramatic as a Hollywood romance would proclaim. Sam doesn’t inhale a breath and his heart doesn’t start beating and his eyes don’t flutter and there isn’t a flash of golden, glittery light that heals his wounds and brings the prince to his feet at perfect height to plant a big sloppy kiss on his princess.

But Sam’s soul does respond.

It’s uncertain in the way he knows Sam would be, reaching out with a cautious touch to press against his grace, and Gabriel can feel… so many things. Hopes and wishes and losses and dreams and the sorrowful regrets of a life cut short before possibilities could be tested. He sees, like a memory from an outside perspective, that very first time the two of them met. It had been funny then, and he had been amused by the trick he was playing on these two hunters who didn’t understand that there was more complexity to the world than human-good, monster-bad.

He remembers his disappointment and irritation later as they just wouldn’t listen, but as he watches the scene of his first meeting the brothers - first meeting _Sam_ \- he realizes that there was a great deal more going on than he had been aware of.

He and Sam moved… together. Mirroring each other. It was an unconscious duet in their body language that was almost sickening to witness. The way they eyed each other, and yes, Gabriel had been attracted to Sam from the start. How could he not be? With a body like that, lithe and muscled, but a heart and a soul that wasn’t spoiled by life. Not the way Dean’s was, all harsh lines and one-lane roads. Sam’s soul held hope and a belief in kindness that could so easily translate to seeing the world through open eyes. So yes, he had been attracted to Sam from the start. He hadn’t forgotten that.

But he didn’t realize that he had been so fucking _obvious_ about it. They were practically having eye-sex right there in front of Sam’s brother and no, Gabriel was definitely not a prude (he was well known for his thoroughly debauching Lughnasadh celebrations, thank you) but he didn’t remember his meeting Sam Winchester as being so fucking _pornographic_. He was almost ashamed.

Okay, no. He wasn’t the least bit ashamed. A little disappointed in himself for not realizing and for projecting his feelings for everyone to see, but definitely not ashamed. There had been something there for both of them, an attraction right from the start, and not just on his end. Not with the way that Sam’s dimming soul called up the memory so easily, as though it was there at the forefront of his mind. The day he met Gabriel.

Sam’s soul flickered weakly, a disconnected light, and Gabriel reached out. He already knew from trying that his grace was too weak to heal Sam, but he couldn’t resist curling his fingers around the young man’s essence. The fingers of his trueform, long and thin and many, cupped beneath Sam’s weakening soul and held him as gently as one most hold a pool of water to keep it from slipping from their grasp.

The soul was warm, less like water than like holding sunshine, and Gabriel could not stop his smile at the thought of holding a star in his hands. If Sam knew how much he reminded Gabriel of his brothers before The Fall, like a star that burned bright and turned the sky into a tapestry.

His grace brushed against Sam’s soul, like fingers carding through hair, and he felt the regret and loss within the essence of Sam’s being. His eyes looked past the tattered ball of dull light, at the physical plane beyond the one where his trueform breathed, at Sam’s body, broken and abused. It was too cracked to hold anything now, grace or soul,but it could be healed. Not by Gabriel, not as weak as he was, but it _could_ be healed by an angel strong enough.

And Gabriel knew an angel who would not hesitate to heal Sam Winchester.

Gabriel ducked his head so his lips hovered over Sam’s soul, the breath from his trueform like a warm breeze as he exhaled carefully, soothing Sam’s soul as best he could with the winds of his own dim grace.

“Stay, Sam,” he murmured, the whisper of winds through leaves, the creak and hum of windmills against his mere breath. “Stay with me.”

_Can’t. Dead. Can’t. Gone. Sorry._

They weren’t _words_ , not really. Just thoughts. Apologetic musings from a soul that felt itself being pulled away. One who knew death and recognized it’s summons far more easily than it recognized the mercy and love of an angel.

“Samuel.” He pressed his lips against starshine, just a gentle brush of his mouths across Sam’s soul, and whispered, “Let me keep you here. Let me keep you.” He stretched his grace out, let it whisper things he wasn’t sure he could voice, not yet. Felt his wings fold down, feathers brushing against Sam’s soul with whispers of things beyond words.

“Give me time to heal you. Let me keep your soul.”

_Why?_

The question was enough to make Gabriel sick, because he could hear all of the questions asked in that one thought-feeling-word.

Why bother? Why save me? Why risk yourself? Why bring back a monster? Why sully your grace with my soul? Why dirty yourself for me? Why? Why? Why?

There was too much to answer here, even in this place where time seemed to stand still. This would take more than one moment to fix, more than grace fingers through soul hair and his lips on Sam’s soul. Most of the questions Gabriel could save for later, but the one he desperately needed to answer now because it was _so_ **wrong**.

Sam thought his soul would dirty Gabriel’s grace? That it was too filthy to touch? That it was tainted?

Gabriel’s wings curled around his shoulders until the underside of his primary feathers were brushing against Sam’s soul. His grace aches within him and he knew the pain was audible in his voice, little more than a croaked whisper. “Do you even understand?”

The sense of confusion that radiated from Sam’s soul was only slightly stronger than the sensation of disbelief at Gabriel’s wings touching him - willingly touching him - and Gabriel had to fight the urge to bury his feathers deep in that soul and fill it with what remained of his grace, to heal the wounds cruel words and deeds had done.

“Sam, your soul is the most beautiful piece of Dad-crafted architecture that I have ever borne witness to, and I was there at the beginning. I watched the formation of Adam. I saw the soul of the first man before the fruit was even _plucked_ from the Tree of Knowledge. His soul was untainted in those first days, perfect and unmarred, but it would pale next to yours. You shine like a star, my Samshine, and I do not think even Dad could craft a soul as beautiful, for the brightness of yours is your strength.

“Lucifer was called the MorningStar for the brilliance of his grace but Sam… Sam, _you eclipse him_.” The archangel shook his head. “How can I sully myself with your soul? Sam… I don’t deserve to even look at you.” He let his grace and wings wrap around Sam’s soul like a hug. “But I dare anyone to make me stop.”

He could feel the tears on his face as he crouched there over Sam’s body, hands cradling his head as his grace held Sam’s soul. He gave a watery chuckle and whispered, “I’m in love with you, Samshine. Please… don’t make me let you go.”

He felt the tremble of Sam’s soul, a storm of disbelief and self-rejection, but underneath it, cowering like a frightened child, there was the barest glimmer of hope. It was a small thing. Tiny and stunted, malnourished by the cruelties thrust upon Sam over the years and by his own desires not to be so badly hurt.

Oh, Gabe understood that need to keep from hoping too hard. If the hope was only a small thing, then the wound left behind by its crushing would be painful but survivable. But if Sam let himself believe, let himself lean too hard on hope, then the pain and loss would be worse than the loss of a limb. Worse than the loss of a soul.

He wanted to explain to Sam, wanted to promise that he wasn’t lying, but he knew that he couldn’t do that here. They didn’t have enough time to spend proving himself to Sam, proving that his words were true. He could feel the insurgent darkness of demonic energy and knew _he_ was coming. They were out of time.

“Sam. You don’t need to believe me now. You can think on it. You can ask me questions. We can talk about it later, just _stay_. Please.”

For a while, there was no answer, no response, and Gabriel felt the weight of disappointment curdle within him like spoiled milk. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and pulled his wings back, flattening them against his spine. “Okay,” he whispered hollowly, reluctantly loosening the clasp of his fingers around Sam’s soul so it could move on to Heaven. “Okay.”

He felt the thrumming call of Heaven like a half-forgotten song, the tune easily called to mind but the words long forgotten. Sam’s soul drifted, pulled away from his hands, and Gabriel curled his long fingers into fists so he wouldn’t reach out and grab Sam’s soul. He wouldn’t keep him there against his will. If Sam wanted to go to Heaven - and after everything that he had been forced to endure, Gabriel could not blame him for wanting peace - then Gabriel would let him go. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to watch and pressed his lips tightly together, afraid that if he opened his mouth, he might start begging. He might start _praying_.

So the heavy charge in the air, arriving as suddenly as a southern storm, was the only warning he had before lightning burst across his arms.

He actually cried out, more from surprise than pain, and looked up.

Electricity crackled in the air, branches of vibrant lightning crackling outward, and Gabriel could only stare.

It wasn’t an ball of lightning like he would have expected, not the gaseous orb of soul he had held in his hands. Sam stood there. Not his body. That still lay bloody and broken on the floor, but his soul had _taken form_ , something so rarely done it was almost unheard of. Lightning danced through and around a form that was absolutely _Sam_. And as he watched, the lightning changed colors, purple to red to black and around again and again. And with the changes of color, Gabriel could feel Sam’s terrible emotions. Sorry and urgency and grief and suffering and anger and death. Betrayal. Longing.

Electricity rippled around Gabriel’s arms and he looked down to see lightning-riddled fingers grasping at him, curling around his wrists, trying to wrap around his arms. On a whim, Gabriel lifted his hands and grabbed the crackling appendages, ignoring the sting of electricity and the burning smell of flesh. He held on tight and felt the tremble of Sam’s soul against his grace.

“Sam?”

**“Gabriel!”**

The sound of Sam’s voice echoing in his head had Gabriel’s fingers and jaw falling slack.

 **“Don’t let go!”** The heavy whine of caged electricity sounded around them as Sam’s fingers locked tight around Gabriel’s, anchoring him them. Static echoed in Gabriel’s mind, as though the ragged shouting of Sam’s mental voice had shorted out all of the rest of the stations Gabriel was so used to. Even the constant murmuring of prayers was silent.

And then Sam’s voice came again. Softer, plaintive and hurt. **“Why did you let go?”**

Gabriel’s fingers trembled. “You didn’t… you didn’t say anything.” He could feel his own hope, aching like a jagged thing cutting its way through his chest.

Confusion battered against his trembling grace and Gabriel furiously clamped down on his burgeoning hope. Sam’s eyes flickered with lightning - black, purple, blue. **“Say?”**

Gabriel’s lips trembled and he was afraid to say it, afraid that he would say it and Sam would tell him that no, he didn’t want to stay. Not with Gabriel. Not ever. But he forced an unnecessary breath into his lungs, though it fought, shivering the whole way down, and croaked out, “You have to say yes.”

Sam’s fingers pulled away from him slightly, the thrum of electricity dulling, and Gabriel shut his eyes. He shouldn’t have said anything. He knew he shouldn’t have. He should have just let Sam go. He shouldn’t have let himself _hope._

**“Yes.”**

Gabriel didn’t look up but his fingers tightened around Sam’s. He had his teeth clenched tightly together but that did nothing to stop the tears filling his eyes. He couldn’t… if this was a trick, he couldn’t…

**“Gabriel? Did you hear me?”**

The painful sparking of electricity had stopped, Gabriel noted distantly. Sam’s soul still held a human form, however, his fingers held fast in Gabriel’s tight grip, but the panicked crackling had ended. Instead, Sam’s touch was warm, just like sunshine laid across his vessel’s skin, insubstantial.

 **“Gabriel? I want to stay. Please.”** Sam lowered himself to his knees in front of Gabriel and looked up at his lowered face. **“Will you keep me?”**

Gabriel’s hands reached out and touched Sam’s face. Even though it was his soul, the form it had taken was identical to what his body had been before it was wounded. It still thrummed, warm and bright beneath Gabriel’s fingertips, and he exhaled a shaky breath. “As long as you’ll let me, Samshine.”

Sam gave him a brilliant smile. **“Then yes.”**

* * *

 

Gabriel exhaled a slow breath and gently lowered Sam’s head back down to the floor. He wished the young man was awake, wished he could look into lucid hazel eyes, but that wasn’t possible now. Sam’s body was too damaged and it needed to be healed before Sam’s soul would remain in it. That healing would come soon, but not yet. For now, Gabriel could only keep Sam’s soul safe and with him and get them both out of Hell.

He carefully tucked Sam’s soul within his own grace, holding it like an orb of light at the center of him. He could feel Sam’s essence, a force of life, tucked against his grace, folded carefully against Gabriel’s chest, his smallest pair of wings wrapped around that precious piece of the young man he so loved.

He smoothed a hand over Sam’s forehead, brushing long bangs back from his face, before he rose to his feet. The sounds of someone walking swiftly toward him was easily discernible, just as the heavy click of heels on stone was recognizable to him as meaning _pain_ and _fear_.

But Gabriel had Sam to protect now, and he would not falter.

“It seems you’ve lost me my new toy, Gabriel,” Asmodeus said as he stepped into the room, flanked by two demons. “But I suppose it’s a fair trade. Did you miss your home here? I kept it just like you left it. Well… almost. I did a little painting.” It was not lost on Gabriel that Asmodeus was referring to the blood that stained the floor and coated the walls. It made his grace flow down his arm and settle in his hand, itching and aching to summon a blade, even though Gabriel wasn’t sure he had enough grace to form a needle.

He exhaled a slow breath, forcing himself to calm. Part of him - a small, quivering part he hates to acknowledge - wants still to duck low in Asmodeus’ presence, to make himself a small target and pull away, but his fury helps him fight the temptation. This… beast has taken too much of Gabriel’s already. He won’t allow him to have anymore. He faces the demon prince with all the righteous fury of an archangel in full battle armor.

“I’m taking Sam Winchester and I am leaving.”

Asmodeus chuckled, idly spinning a knife in his fingers. “Takin’ ‘im _where_ , I do wonder? Especially since I don’t have any plans of lettin’ you out o’ here.”

“Like you didn’t plan for Ketch?” Gabriel asked, reveling in the way the man’s smile dropped from his face.

“Ketch and I are gonna have a conversation when we meet again. It’s gonna be a short one. He’ll be doing all the talkin’. And by talkin’, I do mean screamin’.” Asmodeus grinned at him. “But Ketch is later. Right now, I’ve got you here again, Gabriel. I’m so glad you came back home.”

“I came for Sam,” Gabriel growled low, his eyes burning, “and my grace.”

“Didja now? An’ did you find it, I wonder?” When Gabriel didn’t say anything, he smiled. “I had wondered what was so special about the Winchester brothers that they just don’t die. Funny thing happens when you feed the Boy-King of Hell demon blood. He _wants_ it. It’s even better when you feed him angel grace. You shoulda seen the way he cried for me.”

Gabriel thrust his arm forward even as his grace took form in its fury. His archangel blade slid clean through the white suit Asmodeus was wearing, into his vessel’s chest. The flash of the demonic aura being destroyed was cathartic and Gabriel pulled his angel blade back, letting the demon’s body drop to the floor with a thud.

“He didn’t cry for _you_.”

White light hummed, singing with a blue shine, and Gabriel’s grace rose from Asmodeus’ body like smoke. He drew a deep breath and pulled the grace to him, felt it slide in next to the grace already in his body - that grace that Sam Winchester had returned to him, despite his need for it. He felt it settle low in his chest, curl around Sam’s soul, and he breathed a sigh of relief at the sensation.

Gabriel turned and moved back over to Sam, ignoring the two demons that had been knocked to the floor by the force of Asmodeus’ death. They were struggling to their feet, but they were also inconsequential. He sheathed his angel blade back into the ether where the rest of his grace dwelled and knelt by Sam, sliding his arms under the large form of the younger Winchester brother. Gabriel huffed in sad amusement as he easily picked up the very tall young man. Sam’s head lolled against his shoulders and Gabriel took a moment to briefly press his forehead against Sam’s temple. “I hope you appreciate how ridiculous we look, Samoose,” he murmured quietly. “I can promise you that your brother will not.”

He shook his wings open, revelling in the returned usage of all three pairs with the grace he had pulled from Asmodeus’ body. Two pairs stretched out to either side of him, while the third and smallest pair still wrapped protectively around Sam Winchester’s soul. A couple nights of rest and Gabriel’s grace will have replenished itself. That wasn’t his concern right now.

The heavy tread of the two demons lumbered toward him in their stupidity. Gabriel tightened his arms around Sam’s body as he raised his wings high. His eyes were drawn to the blood coating the stones of a cell that had once been his and Gabriel felt the rage return like dying coals fed scraps of kindling.

“Idiots,” he growled darkly and brought both pair of wings rushing downward.

He rocketed out of Hell with the force of a supernova. He felt the deaths of the two demons moments before Asmodeus’ little section of Hell was turned into dust, the explosion shaking the very foundations of Hell.

Gabriel’s wings flared open again somewhere above the Atlantic, the fresh scent of clean ocean air soothing the lingering terror of being back in that place, and making its disintegration seem more real.

Asmodeus was gone. For real this time.

When he had a chance, he would find out how the demon prince had managed to trick him, and perhaps focus his attention on Hell and its empty throne.

“But first, let’s get you fixed up, eh, Samsquatch?”

He flapped his wings once and the air sang through his feathers as he carried Sam Winchester home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel returns to the bunker. Castiel and Dean do not react well to the sight of Sam's battered body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** For self-harm, body mutilation, and grief/grieving/mourning.
> 
> Thank you very much for all of the wonderful comments and responses I have received to this fic. I know updates on this one are slow in comparison to some of my other works, but I hope that just makes finally getting them all the sweeter. 
> 
> Special thanks to the Discord Crew for being so awesome. I love you guys.
> 
> Happy reading.

**Chapter Four**

* * *

He lands with a rushing fall of feathers, the sound echoing in the bunker. His wings fold with ease behind him, the strain gone from them. The whole of his grace feels rejuvenated, his vessel new, and he knows this is due to Sam. 

The press of the young man’s soul against his grace is warm and powerful, the heat of a star going supernova within him. Human souls, one of his father’s most powerful creations. Strong enough to give an angel’s grace pause. Or strength, depending on how they used them. 

His lower wings bend, brushing the tips of feathers across Sam’s soul, and there is a feeling like a sigh of pleasure that makes Gabriel smile. Sam’s head rests lax against his shoulder, but he is comforted by the warmth of the soul within him. Sam is still here, and soon he will be back where he belonged. 

There is the pounding of footsteps on the floor and Gabriel sighs. He isn’t ready to deal with Dean Winchester. 

_ Cassie,  _ he calls out to his brother, opening his wings and flying off before Dean can reach him.  _ I need your help. _

* * *

“He’s back,” Castiel says, lifting his head and staring as though he can look through walls. 

Dean turns to him from where he had been pacing the floor, his eyes narrowing. “He? You mean Gabriel?” At Cas’ nod, he growls, “What about Sam?”

But he doesn’t wait for an answer, turning and practically running out of the room. He doesn’t know where Gabriel landed, and yet his feet carry him without concern for his ignorance, and he lets them. They, at least, seem to know where to go. 

Except, when he gets there… when his feet halt their desperate run… the room is empty.

* * *

Castiel sighs and watches Dean leave the room at a run. He can sense his brother’s presence, bright and warm and stronger than it has felt since… since Heaven. But Sam…

He cannot sense Sam. 

_ Cassie,  _ comes Gabriel’s voice, echoing with a sigh in his mind, relieved and exasperated at once,  _ I need your help. _

He feels movement, feels his brother leave where he landed, but Gabriel does not go far. Castiel spares a thought for Dean, who will be angered further by their disappearance. Then he turns and leaves the room at a sedate pace, following these halls that have become familiar. Sam’s room is not far at all.

He expects Gabriel alone, sitting on the bed, so his surprise is palpable when he steps through the doorway to find his brother lowering Sam’s body to the bed. The hunter has been ravaged beyond what mortal healing could repair, and Castiel can sense no presence of the soul that should reside within it. 

He feels his own sorrow well up within him and run over. The tide of emotions that he has been able to understand since spending time as a human taking their toll, and his vision blurs with tears. He can feel his wings shuddering at his back with grief. He wants to reach them forward and brush them over Sam, to heal what damage has been done never mind it will do nothing for his soul, and he wants to turn and flee this scene that carries nothing with it but a loss he isn’t certain he can bear. He swallows hard and steps back, lowering his gaze to the floor. What help Gabriel requires, he does not know. Does not want to know, truly, because after the madness that had taken his brother during Sam’s frequent visits to him from Hell, he fears what it would mean were Gabriel to believe he could save Sam from  _ this _ , even now that his soul was gone. 

“Gav’riel,” he murmurs.

He feels Gabriel’s attention like a laser and cannot help flinching beneath the stare, though he doesn’t look up. “Cassie?” And, oh Father, the confusion in that voice. Castiel cannot bear this if he must explain to his brother that Samuel Winchester is gone. He knows that Dean, already headed this way, will be worse than all the denizens of Hell, but Castiel can handle Dean. Even while his own heart shatters within him at the loss of a man he considers his  _ brother _ , Castiel can handle Dean Winchester. But Father, please do not make him explain to his older brother that the man he loves is gone. His stupid vessel’s heart could bear it no more than his grace, wailing as it is already. 

Gabriel is in front of him before he realizes his brother has moved. Castiel flinches away from hands that reach for his face, expecting… he is not sure. His emotions are everywhere, his grace trying to tear itself from his vessel so it can scream at the world, and he feels barely in control of himself. Seconds from simply collapsing and giving in to human emotion. Why is it that his family is constantly dying - the angels and the humans, both? Is this why Gabriel ran? To escape this pain?

His own wings raise as though they have power at all to carry him, as though they can fly him  _ anywhere _ , least of all away from this place. 

Gabriel grabs him. Not just skin on skin, Gabriel grabs hold of his grace and gives him a shake. “Castiel.  **Castiel. Look at me.”**

He blinks his eyes, sending tears in a cascade down his cheeks, and Gabriel’s wings reach out, the top pair curling around him tightly, pressing close. Castiel shudders beneath the warmth of them and feels the tears continue to fall as he shuts his against against the pain. 

**“Oh, Cassie, I’m sorry,”** Gabriel whispers, wiping the tears from his face with gentle fingers. It is too much like Heaven, too much like the time before The War ruined them all and took his older brothers away from him.  The tears just come faster and he cannot stop the keening sound of grief that warbles out of his grace. He doesn’t even know what he is crying for - if it is for the loss of Sam alone, or for the loss of all of his brothers, some of them by his own hand. His is a vessel made of regret and sorrow. There is nothing else left of him. 

Gabriel pulls him close, wraps arms and wings around him and holds him tight, and Castiel cannot help it. Whatever barriers he had up against his emotions crumble beneath that hold and he wails, his grief screaming out of him. He feels the tremble of the bunker around him, the force of his True Voice a terrible burden against this mortal plane, but he cannot stop it. He has no strength left to hold it in.

He does not know how long they are there, Gabriel holding him as he cries. The wings wrapped around him are bright and warm like sunshine, and Gabriel’s voice, his True Voice, is humming gently. At some point, they moved to the floor, and Castiel is practically cuddled against Gabriel, nearly sitting in his lap, and his head has buried itself beneath his older brother’s chin. He can feel Gabriel’s breath on his hair as his brother sings, and it is only as his sobs quieten that he realizes it is a song from Before. A Song of Peace. Such a tune hasn’t been heard in Heaven since the Fall of Lucifer, and Castiel’s lips tremble anew. He had forgotten the words to this one. He had forgotten…

Gentle fingers brush against his wings and Castiel realizes that Gabriel has been grooming his wings, teasing the feathers back into place and easing the ache of untended wings. He sniffles lightly and feels a burst of shame within him at his breakdown, but Gabriel’s wings tighten around him in reassurance. 

“Hush, little brother. There is no need for shame here. Nor for grief.”

“Brother…” He cannot make himself say it. It is the foolishness of denial, but if he says that Sam Winchester is gone, then it will be true, and Castiel cannot bring himself to form the words. 

“You should have more faith, Cassie.” His brother’s voice is teasing and Castiel cannot think of how he could possibly joke now, but then his lowest wings pull away from himself - the only pair that he hadn’t wrapped around Castiel - and he is finally able to see the glow of a soul.

A breath shudders out of him and he reaches without thought. 

* * *

He stares up at the ceiling and squints at it in confusion. Then the pain starts and he grunts at the feeling of what are unmistakably bruises forming on his chest, each in the shape of a hand. His grace tingles where Gabriel’s lashed out at him in something like a full-body slap and he exhales a low breath as things sort themselves into proper place in his mind. 

“That was foolish,” he murmurs, at the ceiling and himself.

“Castiel,” Gabriel says, and the level of fear in his voice has Cas moving immediately, standing up and turning to his brother. 

Two pairs of Gabriel’s wings are wrapped around his midsection, hiding Sam’s soul from reach or view, but the largest pair are raised in clear agitation, the feathers ruffled. His eyes are filled with so much worry it looks like he might actually start weeping soon, and he takes a step toward Cas, only to retreat two steps, his fingers reaching for his second pair of wings and picking at the feathers. He doesn’t even wince as he plucks two of his primaries. 

Castiel lunges forward. **“Stop that!”** he cries, and Gabriel flinches, flinging his hands up in front of his face, wings tightening where they pressed against his belly.

There are feathers all over the floor, Castiel notes with burgeoning horror, and he wonders how long he lay there in a daze. Gabriel hadn’t tried to smite him, which he thinks is probably a miracle, considering he attempted to touch the soul Gabriel has pressed deep inside his grace. More than a faux pas, it was an immediate threat on both Gabriel  _ and  _ Sam. A more foolish action, Castiel is not sure he has ever made. 

He takes a breath, forces himself to calm down, to put the thought of the feathers covering the floor to the side for now, and focus on the greater concern here. 

He raises his hands in a non-threatening gesture and gives his brother an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Gabriel. That was stupid of me.” 

Gabriel is nodding, a little too emphatically for him to be on the edge of anything but hysteria, and Castiel thinks that they could all do with a break from the constant threats upon their lives and the continued existence of the universe. 

“I’m fine now,” he says, and Gabriel shakes his head. 

“Don’t lie, Castiel. I can see you wincing.” 

It bothers him more than he thought it would that Gabriel has stopped calling him Cassie. He takes a step forward, only for his brother to retreat a step, and Cas sighs, lowering his hands. 

“You don’t honestly think I’m going to hurt you, do you, brother?” 

Gabriel looks at him for a long moment and his eyes are fearful but not, he can see,  _ of _ Castiel. He sighs softly. “I’m all right, Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s eyes lower to the ground, his wings drooping, and he looks so tired it’s all Castiel can do not to grab him and hold onto him. He wishes…

Well, what he wishes doesn’t really matter, since it’s all impossible.

“You’re sure, Cassie?” 

Castiel nods, offering his older brother a small smile. “Yes, Gabriel. I’m sure.” He nods at the wings wrapped around Gabriel’s stomach. “Sam.”

The smile that curves Gabriel’s lips, then, is a relief. His largest pair of wings raise and then fold across his back. “He stayed for me,” he whispers, and the wonder in his voice is thick, filled with love and disbelief. He met Castiel’s eyes. “If we can heal his body, it can hold his soul again, but I cannot do it alone.” 

Castiel smiled. “You won’t have to.”

Gabriel’s smile faltered into an expression of regret. “I can’t help you heal him  _ and _ keep us in a time bubble…”

Oh. Well, that explained where Dean had been all this time. 

Castiel sighed. “Better get it over with.” 

* * *

“NO!” Dean strained against the arms holding him, struggling to get to the bed. No. Sam was fine. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.

Not again.

“SAM!”

No. They’d found him. Gabriel had found him and Castiel had helped him get to Sam. So he could save him. So he could save Sam and bring him back back. Alive. 

He was supposed to be alive.

The scream that tore its way out of Dean’s throat ripped it apart anew. He could taste blood on his lips but he didn’t care. There was blood everywhere. On the bed. Covering Sam. He was drenched in it, the clothes he wore in tatters where every wound had struck. Even his lips were bound. 

And underneath the blood, he was just so pale. Lying on the bed. Not moving. Not breathing. 

Always the same story.

“Dean, listen to me.” The voice came from far away, as though from underwater, and Dean shook himself, straining to turn and look for the source, but he couldn’t move. Panicked, he began to fight the bindings holding him, thrashing against them, kicking his legs hard against something behind him. 

They were trying to keep him from Sam! He needed to get to Sam. If they were trying to keep him away, then he could still help. He could do something. How long had he been dead? Was it too late for Dean to give him CPR? Could he save him? 

“LET ME GO!” he screamed, slamming an elbow back against whoever was holding him. 

“He’s not going to listen.” Dean jerked his head around to see Gabriel standing there, his shoulders tensed and face pained. 

“You son of a bitch!” Dean yelled, leaping forward to grab at Gabriel. The archangel flinched, though Dean wasn’t able to reach him. “You were supposed to save him!” He fought the hold on him as he yelled, ignoring the blood on his lips from his torn throat, the strain of every word he screamed. “FIX HIM!” He felt the tears on his cheeks, hot and betraying. “You were supposed to-”

“Dean!” Cas’ voice finally registered, growled into his ear, and Dean couldn’t help but let out a sob. “Stop fighting.” 

Fingers against his temple had him slamming an elbow back against Cas’ chest, but of course it did nothing. “Cas, don’t you fucking-”

Darkness.

* * *

Gabriel winced as he leaned against the wall, trying not to be sick. Sam’s soul writhed within him, trying its damnedest to rip a hole in Gabriel’s grace and escape his hold. That steady warmth that had previously been so soothing was now burning hot, sparking like electricity against his grace. It made him want to throw up. Worse, it made him want to cast out Sam’s soul, to get away from the sensation. 

He’d known the brothers were close - that had been a huge issue, their codependency - but to feel the extent of Sam’s manic desperation at Dean’s cries…

Dad… no wonder the kid had chased him after Mystery Spot. He could feel the line binding them together, tying their souls and fate to the same path. Fuck. Who would’ve guessed the Winchester brothers were soulmates? It had certainly never occurred to him. 

A hand laid on his shoulder and Gabriel turned to see Castiel’s concerned face. He groaned. “Don’t give me that look, Cassie. I’m fine.” He ignored the sensation of Cassie’s disbelief. “Where’s Deano?”

“I put him in bed.” 

Gabriel nodded and forced a grin. “Sent to bed like a toddler. You’ll make a good dad someday, Cassie.” He winced as Sam’s soul sent out a sharp electric shock and felt Cas’ hand leave him abruptly.

“That’s… unusual.” 

“No one ever said the Winchesters were normal,” Gabriel muttered. “He’s pissed. Worried.”

“So is Dean.” Castiel rolled his eyes with that full-body movement he seemed so ridiculously fond of. “His soul is fighting unconsciousness.”

“Typical Deano. Just doesn’t know how to stay down.” Gabriel forced himself to straighten, wincing as he did so. 

“Brother, I think we might benefit from letting the two near each other…”

“No!” 

He grunted. Was this what it felt like to have a baby kick you from the inside? Gabriel sent up thanks to his Father that he had never got it into his head to try and have kids. He tried not to imagine what it had been like for Loki when he was carrying an eight-legged horse. 

““Gav’riel?”

“You can stop using my real name to try and get me to do what you want, Cassandra.” He felt Cassie put a hand on his shoulder and sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I don’t know if Sam’s soul would stay here if I let him touch Dean’s. Dad knows he’s trying to get loose but if I let go, I’m not sure he wouldn’t just pass on, and neither of us are in a great position to go storming Heaven for his soul.”

“I understand,” Castiel said, his voice regretful. “I don’t suppose you have attempted to explain that to Sam?”

“He’s not listening right now.”

Castiel nodded softly. His voice was hesitant as he said, “May I try?” He met Gabriel’s eyes when his older brother looked at him, the suspicion painful to witness not because Gabriel thought he would do anything to harm him or Sam, but because there was so much need for suspicion. 

He saw Gabriel wince again and then nod. “All right, just don’t…” He swallowed and shook his head. “Okay.”

Castiel’s fingers tightened briefly on Gabriel’s shoulder in reassurance. “I will not take him from you, brother. You have my word.” 

He felt Gabriel relax. “Thank you,” he murmured. 

Castiel nodded, closing his eyes. He kept his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, braced his other against the wall, and reached out with his grace. 

For humans and other mortal creatures who lack the proper Sight, a human’s soul was like an orb of light, and an angel’s grace was like wisps of glowing mist. These were simplifications, though. The mind of a human was created with the ability to  _ imagine _ , so the unfathomable could be given a simplistic meaning to permit that mind to go on, to not falter over eldritch creatures and shatter beneath the weight of misunderstanding. This was a gift from his Father, he knew, the ability to go on despite the confusion or the lack of full understanding. Adaptability. It was what made humans so dangerous, and what made them so strong. Imagination, after all, was what had allowed his Father to create his children and the Universe, and he had given that ability to his second children. 

It was no wonder that many angels had hated them for being granted this gift. 

And yet, Castiel was beginning to understand, it was not something given to humans and denied to angels. His Father may have given it to the humans first, to be sure, but seeing the creations that Gabriel could craft, and having lived for a time as a human himself, Castiel believed that he and his kin had also been granted this gift. Perhaps with lesser fanfare, however. Or, having not known about it, no fanfare at all. 

Perhaps they, like the humans, were meant to learn some things on their own. 

Angel grace, to an angel, was not mere wisps of cloud. Fathomless, yes. But not unfathomable. An angel’s grace, like a human’s soul, is their entire identity. All of who they are. Not just from this life but from all lives. So a soul would hold the memories of all of its past incarnations, as well as those of this one. And while angels did not reincarnate, their lives were long, and so an angel’s grace was great. Each like an entire world all in themselves.

Gabriel’s was, of course, no different. 

Traversing the length of his brother’s grace was like flying. Gabriel’s grace had always been like air. The four archangels had been created alongside the four elements, each of them marked by one. The Messenger was Air, for speed and speech was his purpose. The Healer was Earth, for steadiness and patience was required when caring for the illnesses and wounds of others. The Commander was Fire, for the fierce burn of its flames and its destructive power was as necessary in battle as its ability to light the way. 

Lucifer, whose name and title had been lost around the time of The War, and erased from the minds of the angels and even from myth, was Water. Castiel, to his regret, did not know why. He did not know for what purpose the archangel had been created. 

It was strange, though, that the archangel who had Fallen and become an enemy even in the minds of the humans had a grace that was the one element humans seemed to know the least about. Earth, after all, was more water than land, and yet humans seemed to know more of the distant stars than the churning oceans that threatened to consume them each time the tide rolled back in. 

He wondered if those two aspects could be connected, but perhaps it was merely that humans lacked the knowledge, yet, to traverse the depths of the ocean. He would have to look into it at a later time. 

It was not difficult for Castiel to find Sam’s soul. He could feel the twists of Gabriel’s grace, a subtle pull against his attention, as his brother directed him where to go.  _ Don’t wander, Cassie,  _ he could hear in his mind, and Castiel rolled his eyes. Gabriel was older than him by eons. It would take longer than the span of Castiel’s life to this point for him to traverse Gabriel’s grace uncontested. 

Yet he understood Gabriel’s concern. Their brothers had proven not to be trustworthy. The fact that Lucifer had attempted to kill Gabriel and had, for so long, appeared to have succeeded, was reason enough. Castiel had been hunted by his siblings, and he had done things, himself, that he deeply regretted. Gabriel had a lot of reason to fear the position he had put himself in. Castiel was literally immersed within him, his grace buried in his brother’s. He could do less damage with an archangel blade pressed to his brother’s throat. 

Of course, Castiel had no intention of harming his brother, but he understood Gabriel’s concern. So he clung to the path he was directed down, enjoying the sensation of flying, as the sky of this place darkened into night and was peppered with an aurora he would recognize anywhere as the iridescent kaleidoscope of Sam’s soul. 

He was here. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr as TalkingToMyselfAgain.


End file.
